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the old Onehunga School, Auckland, NZ
By Christina Binning Wilson (aka Sandshoe)
I have dreams to tell
and you would have me quiet
demureness your necessity
I have dreams to sell
and you would tell me chastity.
Be still.
There is a horse.
It is in the tree.
My horse is as a friend.
You speak of rain.
It is upon the pane.
* Through a picture window, I watched the behaviour of a canopy of great branches extending across the gully from where an oak tree grew beside the verandah of a bungalow I occasionally glimpsed on the other side; sometimes there was a person was briefly visible seated in a chair. However the wind blew it fascinated me a formation of a leaf at the end of a branch that swayed closest remained to my eye the shape of a wooden horse that was a diminutive gift from Sweden given my daughter as safe keepsake by a friend.
Written at ‘The Castle’, Parnell, Auckland, 1987
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
I like horses, and I like trees… especially big old oak trees. And I like your poem too, though mostly for the ‘word-images’; I don’t pretend to understand it; I suspect its meaning is too personal for that anyway…
Also liked your description of Onehunga…
🙂
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asty, so pleased I am you like it for its word-images, it is intended to be a poem of word-images for a reader to do with as they will … when we write personal poems it is difficult to know what to do with them so they can be in part accessible to someone else for their interest and so I was pleased with the result … although the punctuation and layout I tampered with (dunno why I did that). 🙂
It is at ‘word-images’ and not any one meaning for any one person I was aiming. Nice to see you around and about (did you pursue enquiry to have your foot looked at, astyages, dear theseustoo?)
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I suspected as much… Yes, I have made an appointment with the physio dept at the RAH… next Tuesday, I think it is… though the cramping seems to have stopped now anyway; seems the indian tonic water and vitamins did the trick… but my lower back is still very sore, so perhaps I’ll get ’em to do something about that!
I’m still trying to ‘walk’ as much as I can… to and from the bathrooom once or perhaps twice per day… don’t want to overdo it or the foot gets sore again… Improvement is very slow and gradual; almost imperceptible.
It’s polite of you to inquire about my foot Sandshoe, but apart from an occasional ‘update’ I really don’t like to bore the piglets too much with the saga of my left foot… So there’s no need to inquire too often, if you get my drift…
🙂
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That sounds excellently good progress. Now bear with me.
The fairly long (poor you) and entirely engaging story about le pied (by whatever name) took my attention from your blog; it is helpful and informative. Then, attached to “Cyrus” by Theseustoo: Chapter 20, Part 2, there are many post-its dedicated to the same (not to be frequently enquired about) appendage.
I quote from one of your own, so as to illustrate it can be hardly be politeness, but rather is human sentiment that has been moved by the literature.
QUOTE… then just as things were starting to get back to what passes for ‘normal’ these days, I start to get the most AWFUL cramps in my left leg and foot! (Yes, that IS the damaged one!)
Asty, what thrills me more than I have space to describe is your left foot did not fall off, neither your left leg, as well you have not expired and to boot, it seems you may have adopted the advice provided you by Voice to pursue enquiry for an appointment with a physio. I was at the service on Saturday of my best friend for many years and he likely doesn’t have to be dead. If only he had not waited.
I am grieving the loss of that friendship and for his 90-year old mother.
I mention here Asty, as I intended somewhere anyway, my hero is a writer, who guessed it, Oliver Sacks, and about 1990 I found him in a second-hand shop in an original volume of his titled, A Leg to Stand On (1984). It astounds me still nobody in the medical profession I asked knew of him in those days in Australia.
You may know all about Oliver Sacks, Asty. There might be others who read this who might not. I’ll persist.
I remain floored medical professionals of a variety of complexions including a psychologist I asked had not heard of him, as recently as 2000. These sort of things too, are not popular to say. Historians like classical scholars can be such an inconvenience.
Anyway, things have changed for the better, because Oliver Sacks is at least recognised instead of-even when it was acknowledged he was known and had been read-being shrugged off. In 1998 nevertheless he had been respected enough in Australia to be invitee to open the Centre for the Mind in Canberra at the Australian Academy of Sciences. He was the first scientist known of appointed as a resident artist when he was appointed in 2007 to the faculty of Columbia University in the U. S. of A.
Piglets who are bored ought register their comments Asty, yet I would be surprised if the nature and sensitive importance of le pied de torchon would be lost on any one. Any one little pink squealer that could not see their way clear to allow a fellow scribbler the grace of enquiry regards such an important matter (I am indebted to Oliver Sacks whose entire volumes I have read severally) would be a pig … there are likely several thousand ways other than by expressing interest in a human’s crook leg to reduce the upright nature of piglets to bored, Asty. 🙂
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I have read some of Sacks’ ‘Uncle Tungsten”. The background is his Uncle’s fascination – if not obsession with the ultra-dense element (symbol W – for Wolframite – perhaps the most common mineral form of Tungsten) – that is used to form the filaments of all incandescent light globes. Tungsten is incredibly hard and incredibly dense. A kilo of it weighs a kilo. Tungsten has the highest melting point of all the non-alloyed metals and is second only to carbon amongst the non-metals. And it is so dense that it easily sinks in a crucible of molten lead. It is even slightly more dense than uranium. Even a schooner of Trotter’s Ale is light by comparison.
Sorry, I drifted off topic. Another stage in the Telstra debacle showed up and I have to add another chapter to the modern version of Dante’s Purgatory.
Time for my meds again 🙂
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“The Island of the Colour Blind’ will take those who like to go there below the ocean’s surface where the inhabitants of the island who are divers (not many, I mean deep sea ones) enjoy a genetic fortune that their breeding provides their eyesight an advantage of being able to discern the flash of light off a swarm of fish as a colour (my memory is lilac) whereas those of us without that genetic make-up could not. The skill of those providers and fishermen is therefore not based primarily on their being able to swim extremely well, but that they can easily discern their fish to harvest.
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Oliver Sacks’ history of Migraine is just fantastic.
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The other hung is even better. Lovely poem Christina.
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Thank you Gerard especially for giving my poem a love place in your heart.
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Nice poem, Christina, and what a charming school…
I love those wooden Swedish horses, they are the best of the horses; they make me think of Peppi Longstocking, she was so strong she could lift a horse…(that’s a very horsy sentence!)
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The original little horse was so tiny it almost could be kept in a matchbox and it was painted a brilliant red with some paint embroidering, H. Yes, very beautiful. That is a very horsy sentence, H., but if you had not written it to describe exactly what you were thinking of I would never have associated little horse with Peppi (Pippi as I knew it) Longstocking. Very lovely, thank you. Thank you for liking my poem and especially describing it as nice. It is a nice poem I think.
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How naughty of me to get such an important name wrong…
(Daughter has a dog called ‘Peppi’!)
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I thought it is Peppi. I have seen it ‘Peppi’ before, H.
What sort of a dog might be called Peppi? What sort does your daughter have may I ask H.? I imagine a small fluffy model with little ears that fold forward.
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Onehunga shoe? Did they name that after me? 🙂
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Of course it’s named after you, the one and only Hung One On 🙂
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Thanks H
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Not to be confused with One Hung On or On One Hung and On Hung One.
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True
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I was Hung Over once and I thought never again. Then I accidentally got Hung Over again. That’s Hung Over Twice! By the time I got Hung Over Thrice, I thought gee, this is getting to be a bit of a habit, so I hung my habit on the back of the church door, handed in my bible and took up drinking!
Now I’m Hung Over Permanently!
Oh, come on! That WAS funny!
Admit it! It WAS funny… or it would have been if you were Hung Over to dry!
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Of course Ricky May was from Onehunga in NZ, Big M. That great and late entertainer claimed by Australia. He is singing a song about building a mountain among other things.
The famous Maori Pa visible from the centre of Onehunga, fashioned on ground once known as One Tree Hill, which in Maori is Maungekiekie now acknowledged again as its title, a volcanic 182 metre mountain. is the dominant natural feature of the area and-as well-is directly visible from the position where I stood to take the side-on flick of the Onehunga school (such a charming school as H comments.) I think it is impossible to not be moved to literature and any express range of intention to the creative imagination by understanding the natural and original environment of Onehunga, in fact any of the places across the distance between one harbour to the next where Onehunga and Auckland were built and have spread becoming the single urban metropolis of Auckland.
Parnell, where I wrote the poem in 1987, is recorded as Auckland’s oldest suburb, which is the area of the Waitemata Harbour and Onehunga is on the Manakau harbour. If anybody who does not know the terrain and its interest would like to consult a topographical map and wonder that I found the geography and the places so interesting I walked the distance between the harbours to entertain myself a few times.
The Old Onehunga School is 109 years of age. It occurred to me the massive oak tree at Parnell was likely planted by a first settler before the school was even built.
So there dear readers for you, a little musical history, a tribute in a song, a little socio-political history, anthropology and a reflection on the age of the oak tree.
I am so glad you have enjoyed my little poem. I love it very much.
Shoe.
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I did not see what Atomou had written until I had posted my epistle. I feel my epistle looks as if I must have been pissed to not see Ato’s work. Sorry, Ato. I will give it some thought and get back to you. No, don’t call me. I’m onto it.
signed Sandy (Shoe).
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Gorrrd Ato, that three times Hung Over got me ROFLing….
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Hung:
I addressed you, Hung as ‘Big M’ when I was in fact speaking to you about Onehunga where you asked me if Onehunga was named after you.
Hung, I am sorry I addressed you by the wrong moniker.
H. has indicated appropriately that yes, Onehunga was titled because you are. As long as you draw breath Hung the place will be called Onehunga it was long past decreed. I think they refer to it as HOOville when having a pint at the bar at the pub there. The old brewing equipment was in situ when I saw it last, too, at HOO Hotel. 😉
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