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Sport 32: Summer 2004

Hamilton International Airport

page 161

Hamilton International Airport

New Zealand is the Saudi Arabia of milk
said the taxi driver.
When I came back I just about kissed
the green grass.

He had driven trucks in America
the whole place has got wheels
it takes twelve hours to drive across Texas.

In the back seat I was experiencing a top ten hangover,
had stumbled in the air bridge when boarding.
Oh, America I said.

The Waikato was going past
its roadside grass
its bridges and signs and fences.

The thing is, he confided, experience.
Experience will always beat the young fullas.
In America New Zealand is like Fiji is to us.

The little house grew near. We passed the massive tree
with its dappled bark, we passed the KFC.

At the end of my street you could almost cry to see the trees
that reached across and touched in the middle
and the tiny lawn the size of a pair of sheets.

Here you go he said, we happen to be a nation
that has carried out a lot of its history in sheds.