I walk to the end of the road
taking more time than time before
when a rough bearded pōhutukawa
stops me as if to share a tale.
Emotions migrate like birds
in a confusion of seasons,
but the cracked concrete path takes me
for what I have become
and accepts my present,
so I go along with it.
I won’t pass this way again
so take it in with a wary eye
but at the steep end
a stiff turnstile
yields into a wide yellowing
paddock bounded by rock walls
with a spreading evergreen
at its centre, and the end of the road
may have been a gift.