Photo of Mt Te Aroha on Flickr.com

A Tourist in Te Aroha(New Zealand ’99)

I stand, with my camera poised, in the busy street
gazing up at Mt. Te Aroha, Mountain of Love,
at the way it wears this morning’s sun -
a crown of rays, ferried down
shadowed slopes in haze of light.

Atoms swim
out of grip

I can’t capture on film the hazy beam
that stirs warm trickles of joy
through solar plexus, swirls to fingertips,
fills my heart with a sense of home
as though my blood had known its myth.

I am only a tourist passing through.
The road is a thief
stealing me for its false pilgrimage
when my soul whispers “stay”,
longs to reach the summit of such love.

(c) Deb Matthews-Zott