End of the road

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.