South Island 6

Okay, last south island post. I'll just mishmash this all together oooooeiiiii!

I went to Christchurch to meet up with Glen -- my old roommate from Pohnpei.


While I waited for Glen, I took a walk through the wonderful park, botanical gardens,


& ended up in some museum, where I learnt fakts.


I almost went to Antarctica over break, but chickened out. So I was interested in the displays about Antarctica.

The first vehicle to make it to the south pole.


Lick that telephone pole, Ralphie.


The first sewing machine to make it to the south pole.


The first... ah.




Ian!


I found myself staring at these for a long time.


sBand3!


Tequila duck!








Had a nice long conversation with Glen & headed north to camp. mmm, swimming.


Stayed on rt 1 the next day (click any pic for bigger version)


& decided to stop at a salt refining factory.


Foam builds up between enormous rectangular salinization pools.




Some of them were empty (left empty, right full),


so you could walk out into an endless eerie desert.


Spongy, weird surface. The pool started to fill up, so I decided to leave :)


eewwww.


Then took a drive on some back roads.


I had to wait a while for the ferry at Picton. The stars came out:


& I wrote for a bit:

//--

That sheep is stupid.
It's just chewing and looking at my face.
Does it think it's eating my face?
You're not eating my face!

//--

The Changing Sandwich

When I started eating the sandwich
it was a ham, cucumber, and tomato sandwich,
which I like (that's why I bought the sandwich).

Later, when I reached the middle of the sandwich,
I found I was eating a salmon, egg, and mustard sandwich.
I decided I didn't like that as much.

When I was almost done
(by now I was holding focaccia bread instead of rye),
it was an ivy, honey, and scotch tape sandwich,
which was hard to eat.

Finally, I discovered I was kissing someone,
not eating a sandwich at all,
and I wasn't sure if she was dead or alive.
"Why aren't you sure?" she asked.

//--

& this one is just an expanded version of something I wrote last summer (winter here).

//--

friends

friends, rusty tractors
asleep in warm grass,
full of picnic wine.

other friends,
all old toyotas and one blue
truck, a bone gearshift,
some white flowers on the sticky leather,
empty, passenger seat.

friends in the cracked rear-view,
missing doors, twisted up laundry,
piled junkyard junk
hiding happy bees,

the chain playfully slapping
after the dog.

dismantled, relaxed after work,
headlights dusty,
friends saying things politely,
give quiet advice, say,

"sit in the back seat,
roll down a window on the hot day,
on what's perpendicularly important."

others, surrounded by wrenches
and books, fixing you
tea, sit at the table
with a second hand clatter
and the radio isn't quite tuned in.

friends whose tire lungs lose
pressure under the weight
of pretty clouds, whose wheels swim
and sink from the dock.

friends, stubborn with phone calls,
pulled over, traded in,
broken smiles on the sunshine barge,
get married, love children;

little toys, easily buried
in the sandbox. watch a spider
crawl into the cab, drive
the whole backyard past puffs of cloud,
and the merry-go-round is full of life.