"Basic", "Aspiring" & "The margins..." by Grant Shimmin

Basic

Beach sandwiches

thrown together from what’s in the car

“It’s fairly basic,” she says

an excuse of sorts

And yes, back in the fridge

we left a range of ingredients

to dress up this impromptu lunch

But I can’t help wondering how close

- and how many - in either direction 

are those who would drool 

at cream cheese on bakery bread

fresh from the oven this morning 

Let alone the chance to eat it on

a beach at their chosen pace 

‘cause there’s nowhere to rush to

With the corn chips we add for crunch

it’s basically beach gourmet

We are feasting here

Aspiring

Central Otago, New Zealand 

May I ask you something, mountain?

Why were you given that title

so long after you were first named?

It’s not that I’m complaining

I just want to understand

Who it is that’s aspiring, and to what?

I’m glad, let me emphasise

that  it’s not the surname

of a presumptuous explorer

Some fabled ‘discoverer’ whose

discovery was a mountain

already gifted a name

So when he looked on Tititea, surveyed -

for indeed, he was a surveyor -

the glistening peak that inspired it

what brought to his mind aspiring?

Did he aspire to ascend you

to take a close look at your shining summit?

Or did he think your peak

was reaching for the heavens

aspiring to be one with the sky

Joined with the myriad stars

of a breathlessly still southern night?

Or did he perhaps, like me

aspire to gaze on you all through

the day, until night hid you

beneath its twinkling blanket

and granted him

a few hours’ rest from gazing?

The Māori name for Mount Aspiring is Tititea -  “glistening peak”

The margins…

… where so many in society dwell

where every day can become a fight

for another day

Hand to mouth; some days an empty hand

So there’s nothing to give

in a material sense to relationships

Is that why Jesus hung out there?

Because to be on the margins

is to see humanity as it really is

All its desperate rawness and vulnerability

To see kindness that costs the giver

but is given anyway, by choice

To see real…

For some, giving is nothing

but an extra entry on the tax return,

something more to be reclaimed

Is it time to redefine

… the margins?

Grant Shimmin is a South African-born poet living in New Zealand, passionate about the intersection between humanity and the natural world, a passion reflected in these pieces. First published by Roi Faineant, he has other work published/forthcoming at journals including Does it Have Pockets?, The Hooghly Review, Remington Review, Querencia Press and Epistemic Literary.