Hello Great North Road

my old friend

I wonder how far north

you travel?

             The road goes west

starting two doors up from the Dog’s Bollocks

ending at sunset.

             So many sunsets

Facebook and Instagram couldn’t contain them.

So many yellow lines, white stripes

there’s hardly a Valiant left

to defy them.

             Now the years overtake us.

Visits as a boy to Uncle Bruce and Aunty Lindy

in their K’Rd council flat

led me to the greatness of  the great north

whipping its dusty tail up to the skyline

of  Reinga.

              Yet why do I see your

darkness as silence my friend?

You’re a sleek black eel

pumping blood all the way to Karekare,

to Muriwai, to Bethells, to Piha,

and our vehicles surf the surges

back to K’Rd, back and forth, LOL,

rocking up our shock absorbers

and surfboards.

             Keep bringing the waves

Great North Road. Keep saving

the whales! Keep the toheroas shining

tucked away from spades in sandy bolt-holes.

Smile in your cars and honk honk honk

on the Great North Road.