Michael Mintrom
Petrus Van der Velden Writes Home
From here in Nieuw-Zeeland, everything
of our world appears distant and tiny now, as if
peering through a telescope held the wrong
way round. Still, many times each day
I think of you, my family—your voices, your prayers
in upstairs rooms. That summer we lodged
near Wageningen, walking fields of wildflowers,
bees buzzing, the cobalt sky above breeze-
fluttered grasses. Seeking quiet places to paint.
Birds singing in far-off trees. These days, that’s my
miniature world, place of memory and dreams.
But I write to tell of the wildness I’ve found here—
Otira Gorge. White water thundering through rocks.
I paint in late light, in storms. Lost to all else. Ecstatic.