Regrowth

The grass is just beginning to grow...
still a little brown as yet
where was once a house is now
abuzz with clover, feeding bees...

A house once stood where
horses grazed beside
fields of cabbages ... perhaps... or maybe
lettuces....

then before, in former times manuka scrub
pink and white
clothed seaside hills
tossed by sea winds....

There was a house...
then one day
it had gone, along with
the small poodle with his revolving
tail, who had always greeted me
in ecstatic fashion
barking and rushing off to fetch a toy for me to throw...
he has gone
along with Eddie his human ...

There was a house and now
a bare patch of earth which had not seen sun
for eighty years
a bare patch of earth, smashed concrete and
a solitary toilet
sitting by itself

There is now a park -
a ressurected patch of soft grass
clover and daisies
buttercups and stray dandelions
and here and there the feathery seedlings
of manuka scrub
pink and white
to blow and toss on a sea-wind swept hill.