I was walking down the zig zag this week and peeked over the fence at my old garden (roses now in bloom), got a bit nostalgic and wrote a poem about the Nor’wester …

then, this morning a dear friend in Sunny Nelson sent me a photo of her blooms

November means roses erupting all over the show
bundles of scented beauty in clusters on arbours
standard and staked, rambling and rambunctious
glossy leaves before the aphids arrive, thorns 
rise up and out in defence protection agents
before grandma or whomever arrives with secateurs


quickly, take yourself down to the garden to
breathe in the fragrances, heavy, light some say
green tea or honey, but rush, rush why don’t you
before that damn Nor’wester arrives
to startle the tuis, shift the kereru, entwining
cabbage tree flora to sway and dangle 


why did you plant those roses right here in line
of the wind, in clay soil near the sea, surrounded
by manuka, kanuka, kawakawa, beech those
cabbage trees, the flax bushes, the kowhai
did you think your Constance Spry would not fly
away shedding petals in November?


But still, year in, year out you cosset them
Your favourite flowers, out of place in your
native garden where geckos manoeuvre unseen
where tuatara might once have been, but no
you wanted roses, by the sea, so you could
glimpse perfection, inhale summer
then you curse the Nor’wester