Warwick Aiken has sent this poem in celebration of his lost home ‘Marama’ which was designed by architect William Trengrove in the 1920’s
MARAMA’S LAST DANCE
I met you years past lying seductive on a gentle slope
viewing a slumbered city of park brick and stone
I learned your name Marama means light
Perfect proportions pierce a man’s heart
I touched your curves caressed in February sun
my heart quick stepped as more was revealed
You were on my mind while others flirted
Each time I entered you I never lost that
fluttered heart of first encounter
Your scent enthralled after separations
Your limbs wrapped me in a special way
when coupled in a languid waltz
You danced in Norwesterly gust and Southerly squall
At night your special sounds of shifting
cradled me secure against the dark
Last September you found enchanted dancing shoes
to dance a tarantella beyond your range leaving
me to nurse your torn sinews and bruised skin
I hid those shoes beyond our sensibilities
On a placid February day they found your feet
making you move like a young Nureyev
You my aged Fonteyn beyond tendon and
ligament reach made too many steps too fast
aghast I watched your pain the beat insane
Whirling spinning veering shearing
angles a body should never know
I sat by you in our garden
My tears traced each curve as you lay
cold in suns rays while I left in solo tango
with our first meeting in my soul
