Museum

Cover Page Title Page Copyright Contents Exhibition (Security) (SUPER)NATURAL WORLD Grateful to the Cactus Water Bear Tramping Exhibition (Biomimicry) Whairepo Exhibition (Limits) Climate Change The Safest Place Fast Forest Seed/Leaf/Tree Tornado Exhibition (Bees) Essential Tremor (IM)MATERIAL WORLD Robotics Radiant Hospitality How to Catch and Manufacture Ghosts Mr Bones Life-drawing Class Overcoming Regret Tree with Bird Paper-cut Skeleton Painting Moonhoppers Exhibition (Colour) Miniature Sketch Fashion Exhibition (Shoes) Pilgrims Respite Exhibition (Parade) Breathing Girls Standing on Lawns – Photographs Pottery OBJECT LESSONS The Kindness of Giants A New Body Recommended Exercise Exhibition (Explain Yourself to a Plant) Exhibition (DNA) Exhibition (Navigation) Coin Rubbings Centenarian Whakairo You Bury Me The Passionfruit Vine Fatigue Font Red Whistle, Orange Lifejacket Black Book Blueprint Folding Tables Museum Without an End Notes and Acknowledgements 
 
 
 Te Herenga Waka University Press
 Victoria University of Wellington
 PO Box 600, Wellington
 New Zealand
 teherengawakapress.co.nz
 Copyright © Frances Samuel 2022
 First published 2022
 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the permission of the publishers.
 The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
 A catalogue record is available at the National Library of New Zealand.
 ISBN 9781776920020 (print)
 ISBN 9781776920556 (EPUB)
 ISBN 9781776920549 (Kindle)
 Ebook conversion 2022 by meBooks
 for Eddie
 Contents
 Exhibition (Security)
 (SUPER)NATURAL WORLD
 Grateful to the Cactus
 Water Bear
 Tramping
 Exhibition (Biomimicry)
 Whairepo
 Exhibition (Limits)
 Climate Change
 The Safest Place
 Fast Forest
 Seed/Leaf/Tree
 Tornado
 Exhibition (Bees)
 Essential Tremor
 (IM)MATERIAL WORLD
 Robotics
 Radiant Hospitality
 How to Catch and Manufacture Ghosts
 Mr Bones
 Life-drawing Class
 Overcoming Regret 
 Tree with Bird
 Paper-cut Skeleton
 Painting
 Moonhoppers
 Exhibition (Colour)
 Miniature Sketch
 Fashion
 Exhibition (Shoes)
 Pilgrims
 Respite
 Exhibition (Parade)
 Breathing
 Girls Standing on Lawns – Photographs 
 Pottery
 OBJECT LESSONS
 The Kindness of Giants
 A New Body
 Recommended Exercise 
 Exhibition (Explain Yourself to a Plant)
 Exhibition (DNA)
 Exhibition (Navigation)
 Coin Rubbings 
 Centenarian
 Whakairo
 You Bury Me
 The Passionfruit Vine
 Fatigue Font
 Red Whistle, Orange Lifejacket 
 Black Book Blueprint
 Folding Tables
 Museum Without an End
 Notes and Acknowledgements
 Exhibition (Security)
 The ‘Gallery Guidance’ sign said to supervise your children
 and I did, oh, I kept my hands close to my sides.
 But those red herrings of history –
 well I whistled and through the alarm rays they swam.
 I was above suspicion, just a trail of red pen
 and some loose-limbed tears,
 my employee’s tag a cheap necklace
 with an outdated cameo.
 Outside in the wind, artefacts whirl in my coat pockets.
 A spine from an extinct hedgehog, a fossilised bowtie,
 an inch of elixir in a blue glass bottle.
 If you ask me about the low pay
 then I say I do it for love.
 Let me show you,
 just put your lips together like this –
 (SUPER)NATURAL WORLD
 Grateful to the Cactus
 Sitting between a camel’s humps
 on the first day rain has ever rained
 in this desert. The need for an oasis extinguished.
 The clouds like grapes, darkening
 just by looking at each other.
 It seems that everything is clearer
 without the rising heat waves.
 Instead, a loud hissing sound
 as every cactus lets go of its breath.
 For the first day in forever
 they don’t have to be life savers,
 sentinels of water, amenable
 to the punctures of thirsty travellers.
 Today the sky and its army of raindrops
 can take care of everyone.
 Your camel makes its slow way past
 the tallest cactus in sight,
 whose green arms, usually upright in surrender,
 have deflated by its sides.
 From your double mountaintop, you reach out
 and shake its hand between spikes, saying
 good job, thank you for your efforts!
 In the world where you come from
 you’re told that everyone, apparently everyone,
 likes to hear those words.
 Water Bear
 The water bear is a flattened cloud
 on a glass slide rule.
 It’s hard to make out legs or even a head.
 The water bear needs to moult in order to grow,
 which reminds me of James saying
 ‘It’s the letting go that counts.’
 If you are less than a millimetre long
 is it possible to have days where you don’t know
 what to do with yourself?
 Time to get some sunshine, and it’s not far
 from the science collections to the staff kitchen.
 Someone – who? – has made soup,
 turning over and over in the pot.
 Soup is indestructible and water bears
 can survive the vacuum of space.
 They live on the film of water
 around moss and lichen
 and drying up for decades doesn’t kill them.
 Add water and off they go again.
 Sometimes the lighter the more lasting.
 I hold the slide rule to the window
 and loosen my grip, but I’d never let the glass drop.
 No need to write another exhibition label.
 I could just lick the water bear
 and set it Tramping
 Yesterday you were moss,
 absorbing everything.
 Today you don’t want to learn
 anything new.
 You have your tin cup filled with ice
 that doesn’t feel like turning into water.
 It’s not personal.
 The ice isn’t trying to kill you.
 In fact, a short walk away is a waterfall
 and now it’s a good thing
 you’re no longer moss
 because moss doesn’t have legs.
 When you get there, thousands of drops
 rain down on the thousands of people
 gathered with their tin Exhibition (Biomimicry)
 These herbarium specimens have led more exciting lives
 than any of us, says Leon.
 They travelled on Cook’s voyages in the 1700s –
 The light is shining on us as we listen
 but not through us in the way
 sunlight filters through leaves.
 We can’t have that until we’re skeletons.
 There is a word for the fading colour of a leaf as it dies.
 I am thinking how maybe I am also captive to paper,
 stuck on and identified, illustrated