A house is not a home if it isn’t in your heart.
A house is not a home if it isn’t the place that lifts your dreams
And makes you smile and puts the gladness in your eyes
When the sun sinks in the west and the summer lingers on.
Our Mount Tiger home was filled with love and kindness
They all belonged, the children laughing, the turbid teens,
The thieving possums, lonely pheasants and quirky quails,
The irritating huhu bugs, mesmerising puriri moths and startled skinks.
Our house was small but wore a warm place in our hearts
Our lives were kneaded and fashioned and left to prove in the sun.
Going home at the end of the day was like a long slow sigh
As the work was left behind and we were back where we belonged.
Alison Jean Hankinson
The challenge for poetics was to write about a building and we were really supposed to create it. This was our home on Mount Tiger, a small rectangular box atop a hill with a steep acre of bush, and we were the visitors the custodians of the land, we shared our home and landscape with all who had come before us and thrived around us. We had lavender for the bees, wildflowers for the butterflies, cabbages for the caterpillars, and I think the birds and rabbits lived off my vegetable garden. It was a beautiful home for my family to grow up in. We didn’t build it but we did grow it.
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Hues of Hankinson 
Small is big if it in one’s heart and big is small if it is not. I liked the description of these creatures: “The irritating huhu bugs, mesmerising puriri moths and startled skinks.” I have never heard of any of them, but I especially find the huhu bugs interesting although I probably would not want them around.
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huhu bugs are truly awful and they fly into you because they are blind-ish…
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http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/10074/huhu-beetle
scary bugs…
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The best house for me is: wore a warm place in our hearts ~ I live in the city so I am not annoyed by those bugs and insects ~ Enjoyed the photos too ~
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Oh, how I love this:
“Our lives were kneaded and fashioned and left to prove in the sun.
Going home at the end of the day was like a long slow sigh”
I hope my home will always be that kind of safe haven for my kids.
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Ahhhh ….. so much comfort and love in this
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“Our lives were kneaded and fashioned and left to prove in the sun.” Just beautiful! ❤
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Exotic creatures, you lived among! Sounds like a lovely house to me, especially if you can say, ““Our lives were kneaded and fashioned and left to prove in the sun.”
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A house is best when shared… maybe even with bugs 🙂
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Must have been hard to leave it. I hope you build with the same spirit in your new home.
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That final verse is just gorgeous. That’s exactly what home should be.
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“Our lives were kneaded and fashioned and left to prove in the sun.” That’s an extraordinary expression. It sounds like yeast bread rising.
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This is full of love, nature and nurturing. Simply a beautiful place!
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what a lovely home 🙂
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