Browsing the shelves
There are four books on my shelf. I can’t feel them, these electronic copies, but the pages are shining on my tablet, bright in the darkness of my room. It is cold, spine chillingly cold, as a southerly blows snow from the south, and only one dry-skinned hand emerges from layers of blankets. But the stories are of warmth, of growth, of learning to love again. Three “incredible” books I find boring, self-aggrandising, repetitive; a fourth fills in time during bouts of insomnia. I browse the shelves again, and his name appears, a man whose writing I adore. It is Albert Wendt, now in his 80s, tracing his life in Ponsonby, the garden he shares with aiga and friends. And a cat. Immediately I reconsider this man who I’ve held in awe for years, since I read "Ola" a decade or two ago. Tanoa: an aloof, bird-stalking, pillow-cruising cat. Wendt, writing about hip replacements, friends dying, Vegas losing its pull. Writing about cicadas and sweet tomatoes. There's a tiny slip of pap...
