TE TIHI O KAHUKURA / CASTLE HILL



Punctuating that twist of the Summit Road
the Pinnacle of the Rainbow,                   the Citadel
of Kahukura,                    who rears up like a sudden
curling steel wave-frond of blackness,                    bristling
with power,                    streaming his red cloak behind.

The Pākehā thought it resembled a castle
looming over their city on the plain,                    this
long before horror movies.                    Make out point,
climbers gave its parts oddly picturesque names:
Hellfire Gully,
the Keep,
Drawbridge Slabs,
Ziggurat, and the Battlements,                     though short
a few crenellations since the quake,                 lying at the bottom
of the Bridal Path,                    but like
                    most of us

                                        it’s mostly still there. 

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