Wharariki Dawn Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

The Pavilion Terrace, the Peacock and the Butterfly

The peacock is as always magnificent
With his brightest of iridescent blues
And tufted top-knot of feather flowers.

He is scrounging the terrace
For crumbs from the campers.

Above the slowly subsiding flooded creek
Flax and cabbage trees
Fringe the driveway, and the cabins
Where the wary and provident have taken refuge -
As the mist and drizzle gust and billow
Mizzling out the old hills above.

A tiny and perfect six-year old Japanese girl
Kicks her heels against her wooden chair,
Lost for worlds in her screen game,
Her face framed by a cloche of blue hair with bubble-gum streaks
Painted by her loving mums in the modern fashion -
Her devices suddenly astart from the peacock's inquisition.

You have to smile.

I sit still longer on the communal couch
Cradling my precious morning coffee
Shaking off the earth's premature embrace -
Sodden tenting and rope stumbling
And a night-time of wails and keening.

The heavy, murky fog continues to roll in.

A brave butterfly flitters before me,
Perfuming its wings on the droplet-dewed pathway jasmine.

Li Bai and Bashō, what are you two old rascals doing here?

Have you nothing better do to do
Than hang around the Wharariki Camping Ground on a wet dawn?