Before My Time: Old Snaps
A rare visit to New Zealand gets me wondering
about my father, dead forty years.
My sister in Auckland likes to say:
teachersı children are like the shoes
of cobblersı children, neglected.
But he planted trees.
Soon Iım driving south into wild
North Taranaki, keen to check Awakino,
the aging trees in the school grounds.
The rain-forest mountains part in a river valley
(thereıs the coast), and I overshoot the turn-off.
Does Awakino still exist apart from that forlorn pub,
and a handmade sign dunniesı?
Next stop down the coast is Mokau,
signs of prosperity, cafés (whitebait fritters),
and an old shop now the Tainui Historical Museum.
I step in, warming to the clutter of rusty relics,
booklets on bygone crafts and trades,
the chatting volunteer staff, and a man at a computer.
I say how I missed my Awakino errand at the school.
Name? Richards. In a flash he brings up on the screen
my lost Dad, and mother too. Seven years before my time.
The slim young couple, closer than I remember seeing them.
I seem to have her skinny ankles (good on a woman).
Another: Dad on horseback! Never since then, surely.
The school, with its young trees. The school with older trees.
Just images, I donıt know him better,
but the years between are briefly bridged.
He was young, he aged, I lost him scarcely known.
The snaps are on file. I pay and know
theyıre emailed to me in Melbourne.
Where now I sit (older than he ever was),
still not grieving, searching for words.
11am, Wednesday 27 April 2005
Max Richards,
North Balwyn Vic
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