My Town
I want to talk to you about my town, as you do when your town gets kinda fucked over. And by the way this ain’t no bleat. My town would never bleat. My town is too tough for that. But you see, my town needs some kind of, I don’t know, acknowledgement I suppose, in the broader scheme of things.
My town lives inside an old volcano which never had a name because it blew itself to bits ten million years ago, long before the ancestors went around naming shit. Got red rock hills and basalt faces embracing the ocean harbour style, got big ships from everywhere coming and going, trade and commerce, coal for China, fish for chips and bride white cruises looking for action, milk and lamb for London town, used Toyotas disembarked from the ugliest vessels you’ll ever see, container trade and flags of convenience, someone’s making a big buck somewhere, fair enough.
My town got artists and good coffee, rickety houses one hundred and something years old inhabited lovingly, bearded buskers singing for bread, the cool and beautiful, the lost and lonely, the ordinary citizens grinding it out. My town got style and substance, a rarity in the age of shallow. Got a hole in the hill, we call it ‘the tunnel’ access as in Shangri La, you know you’re home when you pass through it.
My town got semi wasted by many acts of God. You will have seen it on the news. The news is good like that, grief expositions in the honeyed hands of a spunk reporter, a six point four on the Richter scale, a seven point five, a who-the-hell-cares we’re-well-fuckin-over-it! Earthquakes in old volcanos tend to fray the nerves somewhat.
My neighbour, he’s a union man, worked the wharfs since he was a midget, punched it out on the picket line, tough as nails, soft as silk with his grandchild, watching his lifelong equity disappear in the broken bricks of his homestead, saw him shed a tear and suck it up when he thought someone was watching.
Ain’t no main street anymore. Rubble and the cordon fences. Business belly up you’d think but nah, the traders find another way, you have to eh, punters still require coffee and a conversation, need a brew, check out the yellow caravan, the table on the corner, the chill out zone set up in someone’s garage.
My town will not die.
But it requires love.
Mind you, don’t we all. Having said that, having softened up and finally acquiescing to a reality that implies our fate is randomly suggested by fractures in the earth, my town realises the simplicity of existence, you get up in the morning, you open your doors to the day, you check out your neighbour, you sware at the aftershocks, you take in the view and understand my town forever changed is still my town.
Ben Brown is a prolific writer, poet and publisher. He comes from Lyttelton, New Zealand, but has recently based himself in Auckland, where he is resident at the Michael King Writers’ Centre after being awarded the Maori Writer’s Residency in 2011
Comments
On Sunday, July Jul 2011 Brett said...
“Seen some of Ben's writing on FB - wild stuff, totally original. Thanks for the post.”
On Sunday, July Jul 2011 MarkyB said...
“Went back briefly to Christchurch to visit family. Could not believe what the place has become since the quakes: couldn't get into city, some suburbs off limits, roadworks and scaffolding everywhere. And it was unbelievably cold. Amazing fortitude for people to stay there. For those, like Ben, who are in another place, I guess there's a certain wistfulness.”
On Sunday, July Jul 2011 KerryS said...
“As a Christchurch resident, it's been incredibly difficult to remain unmoved by what has happened in our city over the last 12 months. Thanks Ben for giving voice to how we all feel here, and how we'll continue to keep on keeping on. xx”
On Monday, July Jul 2011 Rusty Piper said...
“Type Your comments here...Ben's voice is a most refreshing one in a New Zealand beset by graduates of 'creative writing' classes and all brandishing a paper sword of political correctness and creating nice little plot lines that never go over any edge nor know there is an edge to go over nor anywhere near. Thanks for the refreshments.”
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