The poem – “Listening to the passage of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill in Northland”

And I was listening to the radio about all this argument we’re having about the foreshore and what it means, and I just….in the middle of that I thought, if everything was alive I wonder what the foreshore would make of all our arguments about it, as if we have any ownership of it, any of us. And so I took that idea and I sat down and I wrote this poem. It’s called “Listening to the passage of the Foreshore and Seabed Bill in Northland”.

I went to the beach today and dug my toes in. It started with the seagulls, I asked them what right they had to be there, they said who cares man, we’re losing the cricket, have you got any bread? So I said to the pipi, you’re up to your necks in it now. They spat at me, then they poked out their tongues. I said to the sand, who told you to set up shop? Why don’t you go back to the sad arsed piece of coral you used to belong to? The sand didn’t say anything. So I cleaned up the driftwood, the seaweed and the rocks, with their small pools of starfish and shells and party dresses, I mainly had a problem with the sea, I told it to clear off the other night and it did, but when I checked the sun had come up with the rent, I saw it was already back again the next morning.

So that’s a poem about the foreshore not really caring about our arguments about it.