Other metaphors are used to display further the speaker's emotions, interpretations or thoughts toward objects. In `No Ordinary Sun', Tuwhare says that the tree will no longer be `wreathed with the delightful flight / of birds', using ‘a wreath’ as a metaphor visually depicting the birds surrounding the tree. In further context, this metaphor demonstrates the allusiveness of poetic expression– an allusion to the ‘soon to be destroyed beauty’.
This usage is also found in `Ron Mason’, in the line `Your suit has not the right cut for me... new armpit sweat'. The speaker is alluding to the difference in their poetry, but says that he will continue doing what Mason did during his life. He is commenting, using the jacket as a metaphor, that even though what he and Mason were writing was different in many ways, what they were doing, expressing themselves using their poetry, was the essentially same.
However, the most common use of metaphors is to describe further objects or occurrences. In `No Ordinary Sun', the speaker firstly compares the explosion to more primitive human creations, saying 'this is no mere axe / to blunt, nor fire to smother'. The speaker is commenting on the fact that our creations have progressed from primitive tools and fire to making complex weapons like the atom bomb. The blast is also compared to natural occurrences using contrasting metaphors, saying `this / is no ordinary sun', `this is no gallant monsoon's flash, / no dashing trade wind's blast'. Tuwhare, through the speaker, is comparing this creation of man to natural things such as wind or storms. The speaker is also remarking, through his contrasts, on how mankind always seems to be destructive of Nature.
In `Ron Mason', metaphors are used in the same descriptive way, (but not nearly as destructively) for instance Mason's words being described as `granite', meaning to say that they are as if carved from of stone, and will last long after Mason's time, revealing ideas of immortality of poetry in contrast to the mortality of the poet. Ambiguity is created by the multiple interpretations of this metaphor, as the speaker could also think that the words are steadfast and strong, meaning that they are well backed up and reinforced with reason.
These metaphors all enhance the descriptions given by the speaker, and it can be said that without them, these poems would not be as expressive. They can also add elements to writing, such as ambiguity and allusion, which more prosaic expression cannot. Therefore metaphors are one of the most useful tools of language available to poets.