Iona Winter

Category: environment

  • Foulden Maar ~ Rare Earth

    In October 2022, good friend and poet Kirstie McKinnon and I co-facilitated a creative writing workshop at Middlemarch, Otago. Our focus was on the fossils at Foulden Maar. I can now share two new poems, Galaxiid and this precipitous embrace, which sit amongst a host of other fantastic work relating…

  • Inhabit

    This post may be seen as contentious, or a myriad of other labelling things. So if you’re someone who thinks that oppression, separatism and exclusion are okay, please feel free to unfollow me. What has become clear is that I can no longer remain quiet, in response to what I…

  • Kauri

    Our ancient Kauri trees are dying. And despite some people’s best efforts to prevent the spread of disease, visitors continue to trample the earth with their dirty boots and make no effort to wipe them before (or after) entering this sacred realm of taonga.  Always leave your shoes at the…

  • moth-wing

    I listen to moth-wings beat against paned glass while rain taps the iron roof and stars are extinguished for the night i recount my deepest fear that i would drown and leave you bereft i remember galaxies familiar as my freckled skin the dust of which has shaped us i listen to moth-wings beat    …

  • Starlings

    A murmuration of starlings forage over seed cakes I’ve hung from the tree. Late winter hunger, urgent and competitive. Sleet has also flown in. I recall how she slid from between my thighs. Emerging out of fertile depths into sterile light—a brush of moth wings on my face in the darkness. We…

  • breeze

    in the city flags hang limp waiting for the breeze to perform fire escape stairwells rust while refuse expands in black plastic dysmorphic bodies move and i cannot catch my breath but at home the wind will rip meat from my bones lifting my gaze from the interior the birds will huddle i realise i’ve always been the one…

  • intuit

    listen to quiet in the rustle of leaves and ferocious applause from the seventh wave see beauty in harakeke choked by convolvulus and respect the latticework of a bruise smell the sweetness of rotten fruit beneath trees and tī kōuka flowers at night taste the depth of freshly turned earth and the…

  • Filigree

    Ngahere-forest-bush-woodland filigreed leaves underfoot trunks delicately lichened offer canopied shelter within.   In limitless peace it all ends and begins kākāriki shoots are embedded in the cracks between stones as am I.  

  • Splintered

    The dawn chorus today sounded agitated. I lay in bed and listened before opening my eyes. Autumn is upon us. Sunrise comes slower now, with its apricot-pink fingers. Beyond the birds I heard chainsaws, down at the foreshore. They’d said the pines were to be felled, citing erosion and safety.…