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The New Motorway
The New Motorway - Gloria Rawlinson
The New Motorway
Here?
Houses and hedge-clipping husbands
and green-fingered women
and children flighty as sparrows
the universe of an orange tree
ripening in season –
HERE?
Never! Surely there was always
this grey artery
planned for speed
fumed with motoring winds
flowing with traffic from
yesterday’s turn-off
towards forever.
first published in the booklet that accompanies New Zealand Poets Read Their Work for Children (Waiata, 1974), © Gloria Rawlinson 1974, used by permission of the Rawlinson-Edge Trust. Recording from the Waiata New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive 1974