Trig
Through the side windows of Dad’s car
the North Island rolled by in colour -
greens mostly, easy on the eye.
Rain would pass over, dulling it all,
also keeping it green.
Sun again - glinting cabbage trees -
rail tracks - isolated farm houses -
dark front hedges, sometimes
hydrangeas - petrol stations -
not much in the way of towns.
Sheep - dairy herds - some stud bull
alone with its dark bulk.
Pine forests, cut through rawly
by tough loggers. Fire warnings.
Recurring, on bare hilltops,
structures of wood shaped
to a point - Dad said: just
another trig station.
Trig, intriguing word.
What for? Oh, surveying.
Might I become a surveyor?
They worked with tripods -
theodolites, squinting.
The country rested on them.
I mapped in mind a long walk
up every hill, touching each
trig station, taking in views,
down and up to the next one.
Why not carry a tent? - cloth shaped
to fit the trig shape; sleeping bag...
but when a storm passed over,
lightning might strike the top.
Stars every clear night, sun-up,
breakfast, and onward. The length
of the whole island, and then?
He never took us past Wellington.
Waiting for me much later, unrolled
the slow cruise along the Sound
to Picton - and even lonelier,
far-flung trig stations of the South.
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