DAVID BRIGGS
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Reflections

In December 2020, my first collection of poems was published. It's actually much more than that - poems - for it is a joint creation with my great friend and photographer, JF Robert, so contains a selection of his beautiful pictures as well.

​As it explains in the Introduction, the poems and photographs are each drawn from two worlds. Here, in New Zealand - in the Top of the South - where we both now live and where we got to know each other. And from our other lives beyond, in Britain (me) and in France (JF).  

Their subject is reflections, in all their different forms. Reflections in nature, reflections in thought, and the transmutation that each implies, one thing reflected by another. The poems and pictures are about the beauty of nature, and its ambiguities. They are about life and the things it brings and takes away, and the patterns it makes. And they are about art and the need to listen and to see, and never to give up on that search for understanding. 

Words and pictures may seem different, yet at heart they are one. Each is a means of communicating, remembering, knowing. They speak in different languages, yet they speak of the same things. They do not tell the same story, nor follow the same path. Yet they talk to each other.  

On this page I give a few brief extracts from the book. To purchase a copy, visit the CopyPress website, or contact your local bookseller.

Winter morning
​

Winter morning,
frost barely a degree away.
The grass is grey,
gaunt trees stilled.
At the edge of the lawn
a large buck rabbit
sits motionless;
and the air
catches its breath
as if waiting
to see which way
the day might go.
Picture
Time
​
Time drags her heels so slowly, early on,
then all too soon 
picks up her skirts 
and hurtles
to oblivion.
Picture
A day for poetry
​

This is a day for poetry
 
The land is wistful
the sun misty-eyed
the flat and silent sea reflective
and at its edge
a heron stands 
pen poised
waiting for inspiration
 
but the dun sands
remain
blank
 
until
 
at last
 
an ambling mongrel
obliges
and dashes off
a quick verse
of doggerel.
Kaikoura earthquake, November 14th 2016 

In those moments
when the land heaved
and the house shook like an old man with palsy
and at the bottom of the hill 
the water slapped and slopped in the lake
like a child in a bath,
it was not the earth that seemed to tremble
but life’s more cosy certainties
those things we knew would endure 
and be with us always:
tomorrow’s sun 
and the winter’s rain
blood-red wine in the glass
with the flicker of firelight in it
and in the spring 
the gleeful return of the godwits;
the laughter of friends
the dog’s welcome wag
and you at my side 
 
for ever
Picture
 
​
BIRDS
LANDSCAPE
LIFE
SEASONS
WORLD
WRITING
 
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  • Home
  • Biography
  • Zarrin
  • Reflections
  • The Claim
  • The Direction of Our Fear
  • By The Tracks We Leave
  • Bear and Bison Stories
  • Muesli Stories
  • What Next?
  • Blog