View source for Excavations at Redcliffs 1958. Madeline Reid

== EXCAVATIONS AT REDCLIFFS...1958 ==

THE crater steams, hill-ringed,

The volcanic  bubble  bursts,

A shell of stone holds silence,

Patterned by wind's hymn,  gulls cry,

The sea's millenial murmuring

And no man by. 


We found a cave at nightfall,

Built a fire, named our dead,

Mourning their swift souls' flight.

Stone walls contain despair,

Ash-covered hopes grow cold,

Outside a north wind roars,

Stars shudder,

Sleepers groan.


Red cliffs bulk and curve towards slow-breathing waters,
 
Upon the cave's sea floor careless centuries housekeep with sand and shards,

Within a mass, a bone, a comb, a blade

Court the bright spade.


Time passes; here is a claw upon my hand,
   
A shadow cast on time by some giant bird,

A hook of bone,

And look; a wooden head with eyes that watched a people die,

Sees now the Church of England Hall and washing on the line.


Madeline Reid
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[[Image:Redcliffsfigure.jpg|thumb|The figure as illustrated on the cover of offprints to Trotter 1975.]]This appeared in ''The Press'' at the time of the excavaton of the cave directed by [[Duff Roger|Roger Duff]] and attended by members of the Archaeological Association. John Parry recorded the Auckland group's experience of the dig in a verse of his song [[To Delve into a Midden]].

The wooden head referred to is an item (perhaps a godstick head) found in the work, by Bob Law, father of [[Law Garry|Garry Law]]. A re-enactment of its discovery appears in a contemporary newsreel [http://www.ngataonga.org.nz/collections/catalogue/catalogue-item?record_id=72568 Pictorial Parade No 76.] There is a copy in the national Film Archive. 
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Trotter, M M 1975: Archaeological investigations at Redcliffs, Canterbury, New Zealand. '''Records of the Canterbury Museum''' 9(3):189-220.

[[Category:Poems]]