The Bushmans Legacy.

This neck of the woods at least sounds right

With the nectar eaters chiming up top

But between factory and suburb

With the thin ribbon of trees, meagre, on the dirty stream banks.


The virtual reality of nature managed and cribbed

Dog shit gravel and moss slick board walks

Fluorescent rat runs and graffiti sprayed trunks.

Ready to drink, drunk and chucked.


Magnificence of old kahikatea and tanekaha

Shrouded in a mist of methy ethyl

And spent diesel stink.


Reconcile to the other side of the creek

Over a sturdy council bridge to the factory side.

Caged graffiti on mildewed shade cloth trapped

Behind cyclone mesh taut between water pipe uprights

Caged units.


Under barbed wire,

Stacks of pallets

Skips full of flat brown cardboard

Polystyrene strata

Cheap cars parked by the gross.


Graffiti up high, graffiti on the cracked pavement

Graffiti neatly sanded away

Graffiti painted grey

Graffiti over and over


Much as the bushmen came and made their mark

With the axe, the crosscut and the fire.

Planks stacked and the clay turned for

Cold houses and sour wine.