In Ohoka the market stalls sell sense experience.
You need not buy, just drift,
From place to place and soak it in.
The taste of honeyed nuts, the sound
Of laughs and strummed guitar,
The smell of bacon frying,
the sight of smiles and the sublime.
Alpacas, conversations,
Interruptions, stories of the land,
Four acres of olives the planners think
A waste of good pasture,
Local co-ops, boutique vineyards,
One hundred free-range hens,
Working wood once standing dead,
now oiled and red,
Wild cherry and wood pigeon,
Mucking out the sawdust and calf dung for compost.
Sense the land and community coexisting.
See potential. Schools, local halls, a future place.
Then drive away,
through centre pivots and sudsy drains,
To Countdown land where the smell of tarmac overpowers
The solitary redwood giant, a little sad, alone,
Dreaming of the past, and grass.
Dispatches from dichotomy,
The choices we make, consciously,
Or allow to be through apathy.
Chris Perley
South Island Road Trip
2012