the darwin lectureMichele Leggott
I remember nothing about it
said the historian taking biology
in his first year except the three nuns
who sat in front of me
and put down their pens
when Barney McGregor got to Darwin
he stopped dead continued only
when they picked up their pens again
reluctant notetakers
in God's museum of bones and porcelain
that was Friday
here in the biologist's room
anatomical models are gathered
on an old drawing desk spider and flower
the snail in a storeroom nearby
I recognise them from the clippings
and here's the handwriiten thesis
with delicate ink illustrations oh yes
we all learned to draw the biologist says
looking through old negatives
these should go back to the family
box brownie children and pets
then a manilla envelope and inside it
large as life McGregor's Darwin lectures
what's sixty years
between parts of the same story
the weather bomb hits Tuesday
we rehearse in a subterranean room
and find out later the studio
has been flooded also that it was
the department of conversation
who tore out the rose at Ranghoua
its preserver destroyed her cutting
but not before handing on a slip
to the old rose grower at Te Kauwhata
why are these details
compelling if not because
the gift moves between its preservers
who are also vulnerable
and parts of the same story
are planted in a public space
by historians who roam beyond
the walls of their precinct
and are good at feeling the ground
shake Spring had her head
knocked off the Trinita bridge
during the war did it go to black America
or to the other side of the world
in a kiwi kitbag stories proliferated
then the head was found in the river
more or less intact they reattached it
well used to collateral damage
and Primavera receives her garlands
as before the model of the flower
belongs to the wild roses genus Rubus
and perhaps the nuns breathed easier
when they reached it and could
imagine themselves in conversation
with the Madonna of the Blackberry
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