The Tanks in the Garden

by James Samuel Norcliffe

We are completely surrounded:

there are tanks outside.

It has been several days.

They are still here.

In the past one of our few comforts

has been our garden.

We favour things that are blue:

corn flowers, corn cockle, lobelia.

But now the giant caterpillar tracks

of tanks are crushing all things blue

and all things not blue. We no longer know

how to make the mistakes the tanks are waiting for.

We are trapped, standing by the window

overcome by the memory of petals.

We cannot see the tank drivers.

They are faceless, eyeless,

or perhaps the tanks are remotely controlled

like the model yachts on Lake Victoria.

We can watch no longer.

Feeling the pangs of hunger,

we turn from the window.

You carefully slice the last of the blue vein

to place on our water biscuits.

There are not many left.

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New Zealand poet James Norcliffe has published eleven collections of poetry including Dark Days at the Oxygen Café (VUP) 2016, Deadpan (Otago University Press, 2019) and Letter to Oumuamua (Otago University Press, 2023). A Day Like no Other: Selected Poems will be published by Otago University Press early next year. In 2022 he was awarded the NZ Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement in poetry.