Listen, the Fish as They Move
for Kevin Coates

Listen, the fish as they move
from rock to weeds, and from
weeds back to rock--passing
through drifts of coldness--
they do not wince and recoil
when the crow descends upon circles
they start as they break

the surface and yawn at the sun.
Listen, listen beyond the call
of flying fox that has clung
to your mind since nightfall and prayer:
back to the music of ocean
and the honeyeaters in the brushes.
Cries, singular and many,

surround these fish--but they only
stare, dumb and spawning, return
through the dark current of rivers
to shallow clear beginnings.
Ignorant of the flooded gorges in our minds
they return--ignorant of blasphemy,
as each one yawns to swallow the sun.

-Peter Skrzynecki, 1970

Acquainted with the Night I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

-Robert Frost, 1928

I know I did Robert Frost already, but this is one of many Robert Frost poems that I have partially memorized, and the line "I have walked out in rain--and back in rain" kept coming into my head because of the weather here. Yesterday I woke up and the sky was blue without a cloud in sight, and I put some clothes out on the line because our dryer just seems to make things warm and keep them moist. When I got out of my lecture, the sky was uniformly grey and it was beginning to rain. Last night, the wind and rain were beating outside--and this morning, our front step was covered with a thin layer of grainy hale. 

The food I've been eating is obviously not in line with the food you want to eat in the Northern hemisphere right now, but here are some recipes anyway. The first one is my own; the second is adapted (heavily) from the one on the back of the cornmeal box, and muffins instead of bread because we have no sort of workable bread/brownie/cake pan (but three muffin tins). I'm pretty sure the chili is vegan, if you use oil instead of butter for the sauteing and don't put any cheese in it (which would be sad)--but that's probably not relevant, because I don't think I know any vegans. 

Beans & Rice Chili

Soak 1/3 cup dried black (turtle) beans for six hours in cold water; change the water (beans should be covered with 1-2 inches of water) and simmer 1-1 ½ hours, covered, until beans are soft. (You could probably just use a can of black beans with the liquid, but they don't sell canned black beans here.)
Heat butter or oil over medium heat in a saucepan. Add half an onion and 2 cloves garlic, minced; simmer until onion begins to soften and is becoming translucent.
Add three stalks chopped celery and 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro, stir and cook until cilantro is fragrent.
Add ½ cup long-grained brown rice, stir to coat. Add two chopped tomatoes, beans with cooking water, and 1-2 cups of water.
Bring to a boil, and add 2-3 teaspoons cumin, ½ teaspoon cocoa powder, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, 1 tablespoon brown suger, ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste), and salt and pepper to taste. (This is really not spicy at all, so you may want to add chili powder and/or jalapenos).
Simmer, covered, 30 minutes or until rice is edible. Add a further tablespoon of chopped cilantro prior to serving.
Serves 2-3; serve with grated cheddar cheese and sour cream, or corn muffins.

Corn Muffins

Combine 2 teaspoon baking powder, 1 cup of fine yellow cornmeal, 1 teaspoon salt and 2 tablespoons sugar. 

Add ¼ cup of oil, a little less than 1/3 cup of heavy cream, 2 eggs and 1 ½ teaspoons lemon juice (mixture should be mealy, neither dry nor runny, a little stiff). Alternatively, substitute buttermilk or sour cream for lemon juice and cream.

Divide between 6 greased muffin cups; bake 15-18 minutes at 200ºC/392ºF.

What I learned this week:

That, when New Zealand was covered with ocean, there were 1.5-meter tall penguins swimming around. That they've found fossils of amphibious whales the size of sheep in the Himalayas.

That fjords are an estuarine ecosystem, but because they're protected from wave action, instead of mixing the layers of fresh and salt water remain distinct, which can effectively trap marine organisms in the fjord, making them biological islands.

That the dolphins in New Zealand's fjords are some of the only ones in the world who rely on fish nurtured in kelp beds for their diets; they found this out by isotope-tracking bits of the dolphin's skin to determine where they get their carbon from.

That there's a giant prehistoric turtle named after Terry Pratchett (Terrypratchetti, as I understand).

That a researcher on sabbatical who travelled from Montana to Japan to Oslo was able to see the results of diet changes in the isotopic content of his beard hairs.

That there's a species bivalve, Solemya, with no gut or digestive system, that obtains its nutrients from chemioautotrophic bacteria that live inside of it.

That all sorts of things that are unacceptable on land--dumping and dredging and on and on--are acceptable in the oceans. Which is something I already knew, but makes me wonder: if we drained them, what would we see? If we had to walk past the great mass of waste floating in the Pacific every day, and if the oceans were considered wilderness the same way we consider the rainforests, or mountain ranges wilderness, would we accept it so easily?

Right now I want nothing so much as to go home for Thanksgiving. Then Christmas. I want to eat meat and potatoes and squash, I want to wear flannel pajamas under flannel sheets, and I want to see snow piled outside my windows. I want to go skiing, and sit in the lodge after sipping hot chocolate while a fire roars in a stone hearth.

This things are not going to happen; at least not until those last two months of the year, when they usually happen. In New Zealand Christmas does not coincide with short days and long nights, which seems absurd and impossible (nevermind all that nonsense about first Christmases, and where they happened and when—I won’t have it), and they celebrate Thanksgiving rather half-heartedly in February. But watching the sun set around 5:30 has cued some seasonal clock within me, one that operates on a different level than my logic. So though the calendar says “May” my instinct says “November” and here I am, thinking about Thanksgiving.

I looked up the date of the winter solstice; in the southern hemisphere it falls around June 21st, which is the northern hemisphere’s summer solstice. I’ll be here for that, and four days later I’ll leave, and be thrown into a world where the days are beginning to shorten just as they’ll finally be lengthening here. It’s actually extremely disturbing.

‘Solstice’ comes from two Latin words which together translate as ‘stationary sun.’ But the sun is stationary relative to the vast planet—and assuming that you are sitting in one place on Earth’s surface. And maybe you should be; I told someone that I don’t believe people were meant to switch between the northern and southern hemispheres like this, for this in-between period that is longer than a mere vacation but shorter than forever. When you sit still and wait for it, you have balance; the balance of circadian and seasonal rhythms, even night and day, gradual change. But instead I’m whizzing around the planet like a gnat around a cow’s head, flying in and out of shadow at a delirium-inducing rate. Is it Thanksgiving yet?

Hope
It is to do with trees
being amongst trees.

It is to do with tree-ferns:
mamaku, ponga, wheki.
Shelter under here
is so easily
understood.

You can see that trees
know how it is
to be bound
into the earth
and how it is to rise defiently
into the sky.

It is to do with death:
the great slip in the valley:
when there is nothing left
but to postpone all travel
and wait
in the low gut of the gully
for water, wind and seeds.

It is to do with waiting.
Shall we wait with trees,
shall we wait with,
for, and under trees
since of all creatures
they know the most
about waiting, and waiting
and slowly strengthening,
is the great thing
in grief, we can do?

It is always bleak
at the beginning
but trees are calm
about nothing
which they believe
will give rise to something
flickering and swaying
as they are: so lucid
in their knowledge of green.

-Dinah Hawken, 1995

Today I got dressed in my sleeping bag--that's how cold it is inside our little flat, with its big windows and thin walls and no central heating. My breath condensed inside. The forecast was for snow, and our cockle-collecting field trip was cancelled due to inclement weather (the first time in seven years our professor has cancelled a field trip--we were all gathered outside the zoology building, bundled in raingear and sweaters, when we drove up in his SUV and blue and yellow fleece hat and told us we could go home). I was actually disappointed, because I had planned to bring a bag a squirrel away some cockles, aka little-neck clams, for steaming at home--the cockle beds we were going to were supposedly the largest in New Zealand? The world? I forget.

So that's what's happening down here. Welcome to the deep south.

To Li Po

Autumn, and we're still like the will-o'-the wisp,
Not having found the elixir, like Ko Hung.
Drinking to excess, singing with abandon, idly passing the day;
Flitting here and there, flailing about, to impress whom?

-Tu Fu, ~740

This morning, I got on a bus in Te Anau before the sun rose—which is not so much a testament to my ability to wake up early as to the sun’s ability to wake up late, here and now. I was returning from another three-day hike (or “tramp”, as they say here, or walk, if you prefer)—the Kepler Track, in Fiordland National Park, which is another Great Walk (“Great Walk” is secret code for “pretty easy, but still multi-day, hike”). Here’s a play-by-play from the last few days, with quotes from my journal and pictures and the ever-important eating regime:

Thursday night, while packing, to Sandra: “You don’t need to worry about Kari running out of food. Maybe, is Kari’s pack too heavy? Or, did Kari even bring an extra pair of pants? But I’ve got plenty of food.”
Saturday: 
“The hut is huge and lovely for its simplicity: now I’m in the kitchen, by the woodstove, and around me people are speaking strange languages. I’m wearing two pairs of socks. The weather today was truly astounding—this morning the fog was heavy and thick over Lake Te Anau, but now it’s lifted, and we can see from the hut all the way down to the lake, and the mountains surrounding it.”
breakfast: dried apples; snacks: dried mango, Cadbury energy chocolate scroggin (energy chocolate was invented in New Zealand, and is apparently dark chocolate with some malt to make it sweeter. I like it because it comes in metallic red packaging with lightning bolts on it. Scroggin has raisins and nuts.); lunch: peanut butter and jelly sandwich, crackers with hummus; dinner: cold pasta with olive oil and salt and pepper, carrots, gorp
Sunday: 

“I’m tenting tonight. I don’t know if that’s a good decision or a bad decision, but it’s mine, and I made it. My tent is set up outside on the damp grass with all the black flies that I hope will go away when the sun goes down.”

breakfast: dried apples, peanut butter and jelly sandwich; snacks: dried mango, gorp; dinner: cold pasta, carrots, Backpacker’s Kitchen chocolate cheesecake (that almost sounds classy, doesn’t it?)

“After sleeping for two hours I wake up to have a fight with a pair of kea (alpine parrots) who are apparently trying to steal my tent stakes. The fight mostly consists of me slapping the side of the tent, then sticking my head out the door, taking flash photographs and saying “Why do you want my stakes? Don’t take my stakes” until the kea fly away.”

Monday: 

“I have four blisters on my right foot—I think my biggest blister has little blisters inside of it, and at any rate both of my feet feel like they went through a meat tenderizer. So I’m stepping lightly.”

breakfast: dried apples; snacks: scroggin, dried mango, gorp; dinner: carrots, crackers with hummus

“That said, today worked out really well. A flock of kea woke me up, and I talked to them while packing up my ice-crisped tent.”
So there you go: my weekend in a (large) nutshell. Now it's back to the usual grind of schoolwork, cooked food, solid shelters, indoor activities. You appreciate it more.