A poem: ii drift
on helplessness
Article voiceover
ii drift
stick floats, sun draws the pattern tide chooses the direction
About this poem
ii drift is part of a sequence of poems I wrote over one month, one small poem a day, during the 2020 lockdown in New Zealand. This collection eventually became a self published book: Lunar.
I’ve been thinking about ii drift over the last few days. Poems become teachers after we write them, this is often the case for me. I think ii drift is about helplessness within the frame of grief. The lack of answers in the poem, or even lack of a question, help me understand, and see, the unmooring.
Hearing and reading this poem took my breath away for a moment. Coming back to it, what I love on the page, is how the line breaks create that feeling of drifting within me, as I read and listen
I am struck too by how the poem captures both the feeling of being unmoored AND also held, when we surrender and trust we are carried
Thank you Kirstie
There's such acuteness of eye here. The poem, and also the photo make vivid the unmooring, the loss of direction, or rather self-direction, because the stick, over time does move, and not randomly but held by wind and sea. Each part of this little triple work of art deepens the other two - your commentary (or maybe four part, the sad cadence of your voice) places the stick, water, and the play of the sun, in a framework of grief. Then you just let that stand. Restraint. Packs a real punch. Thank you.