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Collected Poems

To an American Tourist at Whakarewarewa

page 143

To an American Tourist at Whakarewarewa

You've crossed the (hush!) Pacific, deep and wide,
to see our prancing natives lose their pride.
Interesting to compare our situations—
you folk have done the same (with reservations).

You'll fill your photo album—hiya, Bud!—
with snaps of snotty noses, bubbling mud.
We hope with all our hearts that you will relish
the scenery, which, like the food, is hellish.

You've come to tickle trout, or gape at geysers?
Well, anyway, you people are no misers;
and we, like Maori boys just out of school,
dive for your dollars in the bankers' pool.