Higgs 8

Go home. With a chisel ruin the frame, climb through the window.
A duplicate, a duplicate,




Trowel for cultivating window boxes
Reference Number: 114/111/02-G

Higgs 7

Find the opening, stride through tall resistance, arms covering the face;
slide into the stream.
The keys unseen. Nor palpable among the boggy roots.




View of Mt Dumas, Campbell Island
Reference Number: PA12-1423-012

Higgs 6

Until a tabby cat
appears, stares, disappears.




Ann Finnimore surrounded by vases of flowers
Reference Number: 1/2-147836-F

Higgs 5

Hurry back down the bank steeper from above,
retrace the slippery track under the lupins,
brush off lupin flowers in a clearing edged with serried russet stalks,
no passage visible.




Plan showing the structure of an observatory tent
Reference Number: B-091-008

Higgs 4

Feel for keys, braille-fingered over pen, lipstick, purse, phone, cards, diary, paper-clip. Not a jingle.



Flowers in fields near Sfax, Tunisia
Reference Number: DA-03012-F

Higgs 3

One wet shoe, damp pages stick together, gold high heels dancing,
a dress the colour of wild lupins, mascara, holidays, bin it.



Poul Gnatt and Julie Barker on sand dunes at Bethells Beach, January 1954
Reference Number: KW-0001-G

Higgs 2

Jump the stream, land in tough bracken.
A narrow track through lupins up the bank to the road, not a short cut.




Buller [1846?]
Reference Number: WC-325

Welcome to 'Serial'

Kia ora from Cilla McQueen.

Welcome to Serial, an ongoing publication with images from the collections of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa.

Keep an eye on this blog for installments every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The first chapter is titled 'Higgs'.

Higgs 1

Through waist-high grass cut through the empty section.
Bend to retrieve the glossy supplement falling out of the newspaper.
Slip ankle-deep in muddy water



Tussock grass plant aciphylla colensoi, 1961
Reference Number: 1/4-044636-F