Garavan

Today again I come to air the
small and unattended shrine
at Garavan.
And with me down that glaring
promenade—the Wesleyan from
Te Kuiti, Wekaweka, and Timaru.

Quite, quite so he says, in
the temperate rationality of
his way.
Full of calm introspective
strength, empty of violence, or
spite. He razor cut the combs

and wattles, dubbing, till the
keen, bloodied heads of his
Old English
Game came out. The scooters
shoot the tunnel under the old
town's rugby bones. Mysterious

cypress is revealed as just a
dapper macrocarpa after all.
Quite so.
There you lay, my Wesleyan
steady in your faith as ever
transfixed beneath that great

– 13 –

arrow of demise. Grief and memory
repressed, incandesce our myths
of fatherhood.
Isn't it enough to say, these days, no
harm was done and none intended.