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Creosote
There is
a photograph
of Creeley
in a crumpled
shirt
sitting by
the Waikato
with an uncorked
bottle
in a play
of williow light
& shadow.
There
could be
a sand barge
slowly crawling
to a landing
upstream –
where the men
handling the ropes
would hardly
notice
him –
the
Black
Mountain poet
his head
bent
toward
a narrow plain meandering
to Taupiri’s
green
pyramid
.
I would
take him
to a tearoom
in a two story town
that serves
white bread
with mustard & ham
4 & 20 pies
in thin
paper
bags.
Across
the road
a cattle sale
where red-faced men
smoke cigarrettes
their trousers
heavy & their
shirts checked.
Would he see
a bush fire
burning
on the back
of a farmer’s hands
the knuckles
shaped like
ridges
on
a high
country
range?
Standing
there on hardwood rails
he might find
a kind of
poetry –
dark as
creosote
&
splintery.
© Bob Orr
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