Are there still crocuses
in Houipapa?
A train goes over a bridge, and I have to
buy this rail-fan calendar.
I climbed down the hill behind it, when I
was a young man, and sunny afternoons were
for exploring, not being inside doing my
school stuff.
There’s just a goods shed, an empty railway
man’s house, a bouncing suspension bridge
I walked over in 1967. A station shelter
still there from before 1956, when the Tuesday
passenger train to Balclutha puffed past
the front of Mum and Dad’s. Agnes riding
the train to Maclennan Fridays. Mum and Dad
aghast at the Russian invasion of Hungary.
Are there still daffodils in Houipapa?
Are there still jonquils in Houipapa?
Are there still crocuses in Houipapa?
Is Brough’s farm still there? He pulled me
out when I got Dad’s Volkswagen van stuck
in their right of way to the river. Backing.
If I’d known it was okay to thumb a ride on
the train back to Owaka, I’d have reached
out further, found people come before rules.
1995 acrylic on hardbpard 600 x 300 mm