Bio
Jeni Curtis is a Christchurch writer who has had short stories and poetry published in various publications including takahē, NZPS anthologies 2014 to 2018, JAAM, Atlanta Review, The London Grip, and the Poetry NZ Yearbook. She is a graduate of the Hagley Writers Institute, Christchurch (2011-2012). In 2016 she received a mentorship from the New Zealand Society of Authors to put together a collection of poems. She is secretary of the Canterbury Poets Collective, and chair of the takahē trust. She is also co-editor of poetry for takahē, and editor of the Christchurch Dickens Fellowship magazine Dickens Down Under.
Jeni Curtis
come autumn
(after Clive James)
come autumn and all leaves will turn to flame
a power greater than a fire will burn to flame
once more in hearts now forced apart
we light the wick the candle will soon learn to flame
in windows waiting in the night for your return a flame
can tumble tinder-fresh to unfurl like a fern in flame
sparks rise against the blackness of the flue
red hot stars in the dark firmament stern their flame
the time and distance that it takes for every heart to yearn to flame
to wish to hope to blame to spurn the flame
that dies for lack of fuel no breath no life the leaf
in autumn withers from the tree dust ashes in an urn of flame.