Aramoana Border Post
"Dunedin, that's a fact!"
said the smelter proponents.
It wasn't and would never be.
Our border post was a fact:
a jaunty little hut
perched on the dirty haunches of the road.
"Welcome to the Independent State of Aramoana!"
We had passports, visa stamps, the lot.
We stood outside in white coats and flagged down passing cars,
asked them their purpose, invited their support,
a dollar here or there to save the saltmarsh, the houses
the sandbar and the incandescent dunes.
We were an enterprising bunch. We had sent letters
to Zurich, Paris, Auckland
promising trouble should the corporations ever get this far.
They never did. Market failure or a failure of nerve
kept them away. There would be other darkness
but the place itself remains,
lonely, unpolluted:
Bear Rock, the dunes, the saltmarsh.
The low and sand-choked pathways of the sea.
Poem credit: This poem is from my first collection, Boat People (Copies still available for $5, folks - email me!)
Tim says: In my early twenties, I was involved in the Save Aramoana Campaign, which successfully opposed the building of an aluminium smelter at Aramoana, at the entrance to Otago Harbour - a proposal strongly supported by Rob Muldoon and his National Party government. The declaration of the "Independent State of Aramoana" was a highly effective piece of PR for the campaign, and a lot of fun too.
Thirty years on, I don't hear too many people saying they wish there was an aluminium smelter at Aramoana. But another National Party government with a similar penchant for Think Big projects is encouraging New Zealand and overseas companies to dig up and process 6 billion tonnes of Southland lignite, which would lead to massive greenhouse gas emissions - big on not just a New Zealand, but a world scale. Through the Coal Action Network, I'm opposed to that plan too. Some bad ideas never really go away.
You can read all the Tuesday Poems on the Tuesday Poem blog.
07 February 2011
Tuesday Poem: Aramoana Border Post
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8 comments:
Really like this poem Tim. It creates a real sense of the place and shifting layers of meaning.
Thanks, Kathleen! I only wish it wasn't still so relevant, thirty years after the events it describes.
I, too, held a passport issued by the Independent State of Aramoana and no, 30 years away and Global Warming well in train, we still don't seem to have learned a thing ...
Hi, I am your newest follower! Awesome blog, it is nice to find authors who are already published and know what they are doing to follow.
http://howlingturtle-pdx.blogspot.com/
Good on you, Tim.
Thanks, Helen, Larissa and Harvey.
Helen, I'm intrigued (shades of Tim Gunn there, if not Thom Gunn) - how and where did you obtain your passport?
Larissa, thanks for your comment and for the follow - I have followed you back.
Even the Think Big projects that actually happened were pretty disastrous - cost a fortune and didn't create many jobs. I don't think the current government has a clue, maybe we should vote Sir Paul Callaghan for Prime Minister (although I doubt he would want it) - great article in the Press this morning about the real way to catch up with Australia..
We can't vote in a different PM while Gerry Brownlee still has absolute power, Catherine - he'd get all upset and confused!
Think Big was an unmitigated disaster as far as I'm concerned, so I suppose it's only natural that the present Government has taken it as a role model.
I couldn't find the Christchurch Press article online - what did it suggest?
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