You drove back to childhood with your family one day

And saw, as you did before with eyes that expected wonder, the

Shorn and shaven hills of Otago.

 Your eyes would swear

That rumbling, restless animals are

Trapped under the mossy surface, desperately writhing to escape

 

Frozen in their struggle beneath

Soft stone and unmoving ice,

Painted with every green and crowned with white.

 

Beyond the hobbit hillocks are the furious ancestral peaks

Thrust up from their own shattering pasts

Still, with a silent majesty.

 

And Ole’ Ma Galvin with her alpine breath

Skimming them all and freshening the face

Of that glacier-tear lake.