The first pat reminds me of my bus trips, admittedly south from Christchurch in the late 80s, Max. But I didn’t recognize the trig sites. Drove a good part of the North island too: both having that elder beauty….
This meanwhile catching the remembrance… in action in the young mind recalled…
Doug
On Sep 16, 2015, at 8:57 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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.
Douglas Barbour
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Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
Done in by creation itself.
I mean the gods. Not us. Well us too.
The gods moved into books. Who wrote the books?
We wrote the books. In whose dream, then are we dreaming?
Robert Kroetsch.
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