(alas, this poem won’t scan as I wish so there are run-overs)
They sit benignly in the cutlery drawer, bone handles, shiny blades, silver tines
side by side, the spoons nestled together. We know not to put them in the dish
washer, and to softly polish them with a clean cloth before returning them to
their respective allotted sections almost reverently, aware of their progeny
Too, there’s his dad’s tarnished, engraved, retirement silver drinks tray the
traditional parting gift after 40 years or more of service, more useful than
a gold watch, an heirloom to burden grandchildren with if you will along with
two almost black silver goblets from who knows whose father or mother
Silvo used to be the go-to, or a bed of specifically impregnated anti tarnish felt
akin perhaps to a duck down duvet or a goose down pillow filling, baize or
flocking, anything to honour the solemnity of high purity sterling, not plated
no pretending, nothing but the real thing to hand down, the burden of a gilt gift
we’d been wondering what to do with all this glory, packed in boxes, blackening
and then we went to the Cornelia Parker exhibition at the re-opening of our
City Gallery, the cultural capital of Civic Square and realised new ambitions
a steam train, hydraulic press, levitation, an anti-matter perspective if you will
Galvanised, we walked around the levitating silver exhibits, denoting the
almost imperceptible movements created by mostly invisible copper threads
and marvelled at the flattened shapes, identifiable, renewed and recast
a teapot no longer, yet still a teapot, and look there’s your dad’s drinks tray
anti-retinal, dead fragments, corporate-washed colonisation of our civic intellect
faux, foreign ‘superstar’ curated drama, vomit-inducing bile, imported junk, gated
stadium-pop spectacle. I’m just selecting quotes from a passionate anti Cornelia Facebook friend of mine, a graduate of the Ilam School of Fine Arts, no less
He may well be right. We loved the thirty pieces of silver (ex Catholics) we
always respond to such biblical invocations, it’s in our DNA, but alongside
the disputed squashed silver artifacts, was a kind of swab of Henry VIII’s
codpiece and I say, how marvellously reductive and satisfying to see
I’m wondering about the shiny knives whose faces once reflected back
my granny and her mum, wider whanau, who knows whose hands held
these handles, so creamy, worn-smooth and from which animal, which
cud-chewing cow, pig, or sheep was killed to surrender these bones
Whose lips smacked, whose tongues licked, into whose mouths did these
shiny silver spoons slide, laden perhaps with sago, soup or golden syrup
warm rolled oats, hot milk, jelly, wobbly blancmange, soft custard, sherry
laden trifle, apple sponge, or creamy rice puddings with clotted top milk
After dinner conversations with tea towels on uncles’ shoulders, soapy
hands, cigarette ash, alcohol top-ups, arguments, kisses and caresses,
laughter, the scraping of meat dishes, and close supervision by grandma
or one of the aunties to ensure the precious bone handles do not soak
Yes, on balance, I’m with Cornelia in wishing to honour the silver,
make art, why not, compressing all these heirlooms into beauty
when they might have remained out of sight tarnishing, blackening
forgotten in someone or others unexploded garden shed
