Talking Tectonics

You know, even if I hadn't come on the plane, on a bus, in a taxi, I'd get here at some point—cos that clever tektonos, that shifty carpenter, poet, boat-builder in the sky, he's been scheming all the while; been doing a bit of backyard DIY, a bit of god-honest labouring and jack-hammering on the boundary—right under that picket fence between the plates, between the kanuka and manuka.

There's a paratekstosyni afoot, a volcanic and magnanimous change, a winching and an earthmoving: those Alpine Ridges, those glaciers, plains and Hutt Valleys, they're slap-hugging the rest of the North Island goodbye—Ya old mudpool, ya long drawn out beach, ya tall and flashy neighbour, I'm off to the Arctic Ocean—I hear you're off to the Pontos—never heard of it.

And all this in broad daylight, Yiayia—can you believe it?

This is what I know: Oceanus gave birth to Styx, the Arcadian spring into which Achilles was dipped; from which Alexander got sick; whose water Iris drew and took to the Gods so that it might witness oaths. Or, Styx was the river mortals crossed.

Or, the ocean is what I'm standing in—one tiptoe on the Pacific rim and one not.