Otago (From Your Dust, New Life Starts)

You are that rising shimmer seen during last summer’s wonderful, hazy days

grown in dancing moonlight and blessed on reedy, tranquil lakes by pure southern stars

seductively creating mirages, across your sculptured tussock hills and stony river plains

unique earthen tones, shades of breathless vistas flirt with light and dark, near and afar

You are much more than dewy mountain mists enveloping rocky, high country towers

climbing beyond volcanic plates, reaching to capture, to tame prevailing feral winds

while strongly standing spilling the lifeblood, found pulsating through deep golden veins

once sluiced by ten thousand migrant miners; now long forgotten like your snowy showers...

Otago, I first made my way to you, wrapped in damp blankets of roaming western clouds

there to be held and nurtured in your magic felt, raised within your valleys foggy shroud

there all life created, endowed with a love thus ensuring, one would never be as before

although I know you well and have explored your entirety, and your kelpie eastern coast

your ever changing moods renew and replenish spilt wine within that dry, playful heart.

Beyond an early morning chill, is my father’s home, his plot, and in degrees of tranquility

yet another hunter came home from your hills, to rest and now never again departs;

love him well Otago, as you have his father before; and from your dust, new life starts...

* Words by Rob Pearldiver *

© Copyright 2013 Art of the Diver with all rights reserved.

Footnote:

Otago is a spectacular region of the South Island of New Zealand. It was settled in the mid 1800s and came to prominence as a result of the Otago Gold Rush. Framed by a backdrop of the Southern Alps, the region boosts its own unique climate and culture. Perhaps one of the best examples of the regions breathtaking scenery has been seen within movies like ‘Lord of the Rings’ and many others.  As a consequence of its beauty and now famous winter activities, Otago has become one of the most sought after places to live in the world. The author was born in Otago, as were all previous generations of his family since settling in 1862.