You wouldn’t know the place now,
the railway all torn up,
folk riding along the track
not to get anywhere, mind,
but for the entertainment.
Bicycles all decked out with
fat, black tyres, gadgets
telling how fast they’re going,
how far they’ve been,
and them all togged up in their flash clothes.
Will, you and me would have had
a right old laugh.
It was at Wedderburn station,
Dad found your bike.
Mother holding out your birth certificate
you go after him tell them the lad’s only sixteen.
You go after him bring him home.
Dad said he’s made up his mind,
and let that be an end to it.
The boy will be all right.
One of those years, afterwards, we had visitors call,
the fellow said, if our boys hadn’t gone,
we’d be sat here on little couches
eating goat’s meat and wearing them fezes.
And all I could think of was Mother and Dad
with little black hats perched up on their heads.
I broke right out laughing
I was crying with it, Will.
The day you left I stood by the window
watching Dad way out beyond in the valley
his bike moving beneath the hills
the shadows following
and the other bike beside him.
I thought you were coming home.
Paddy Richardson is the author of two collections of short stories and eight novels and has been the recipient of a number of awards and residencies. Her work has been published both within New Zealand and internationally. She lives and writes on Otago Peninsula. She wrote Anzac, Oturehua when she was the Mike Riddell writer in resident in Oturehua, 2024.
Contributions to this weekly column are invited from writers south of the Waitaki River, should be previously unpublished, should not exceed 35 lines and should be sent as an email attachment. And please include a short autobiographical note. There will be no correspondence over selections. Post to The Weekend Mix, Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517 Dunedin, or email to tom.mckinlay@odt.co.nz. While we love receiving your poems, due to the high volume we cannot reply to everyone, and notifications of acceptance may take up to six weeks.
