Michael Oakley-Browne

Epiphytic Rangitoto

By the black dirty road
That convicts moulded,
Broad, green, epiphytic,
Kawa-puka leaves
Sprouted and took
Hold on folded
Old cold lava
And sintered boulders

The island’s coarse black rock,
Had flowed blistering down
To its hissing, heavenly habitat,
To form a mould on a lens
Of an artesian water clock
Where a busy echo-system
Ticked down time,
Layer on layer of epiphytic grime

In the absence of trees and
The presence of life, laden air
The black, bleak, blazed rock
Bled and buckled no more
And unique flora cross bred there
Forming hybrid trees of
Rata-pohutukawa on
Rangitoto’s gnarled floors.