The Etruscans

On the fifth day they appeared before us slender as cypresses each holding a stone. We would have liked to study their features but sleep overcame us. Our eyelashes were heavy with olives. A line of ants crossed the courtyard. Someone had just baked a loaf of bread . . . And when we looked up the Etruscans were gone.

Ron Riddell is a New Zealand writer with a deep commitment to ecology, on all possible levels: natural, social-temporal, philosophic and spiritual. Recent books are: Dance of Blue Dragonflies (poetry) and Pachamama & the Jaguar Man (novel). Previous work has been translated into a dozen languages. Book One of his long poem The Wanderer was launched in New Zealand in 2020 by HeadworX Publishers of Wellington. Married to Saray Torres from Colombia, he has two sons Roland and Pablo, and three granddaughters Tuvia, Felicia and Ella, who all live in Sweden. His latest collection of short poems is Exilstationer/Stations of Exile, a bi-lingual English-Swedish edition, was published in May 2020 by Simon Editor, Jonkoping, Sweden. Book Two of his long poem The Wanderer was published in November 2022. He believes and works in the spirit of the transformative power of poetry and all creative human expression. At present, he divides his time between New Zealand and Colombia. His work has been translated into German, French, Swedish, Japanese, Turkish, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Uzbek and Spanish. Recently, his poems have featured in several large international anthologies, in Kenya, Bangladesh and most latterly in the Nepalese world anthology Madness, edited by Keshab Sigdel.

Sometimes there’s a timelessness about scenes, events, occurrences including the long gone; the long dead including the neighbour today moving the lawn with a t-shirt that reads Up the Punk! also the lady who later calls asking me repeatedly Is that Mose? Is that you Mose?

I almost haven’t the heart to say no or at least, who knows?

Also, I keep seeing bright lights in new slants, places, sills things I haven’t seen before at least not in the clear light of day