CLAIRE ORCHARD
After her funeral
We’ve foxes here, my uncle remarks,
pointing out the roadkill, an orange blur
on the road from Bungendore.
I’ve forgotten—do you have foxes
in New Zealand? No, I say.
We have possums, rabbits, rats, stoats.
Mink too, though? he asks. I thought I heard
of mink, living in your hills? Eventually,
we arrive at the National Arboretum.
The pamphlet with site map informs us
there are over forty-four thousand trees
selected from over one hundred countries
thriving here. The pine forest section transports me
to 70s summer holidays crammed
on the back seat of the Vauxhall Cresta,
long days of driving seemingly never-ending, dark-grey highways
traversing fairy-tale landscapes of tight-packed pines.
Someone would always make a face and call them ugly,
pointing them out as invaders. I’d imagine
their trespasser roots, spread wide,
probing deep into the hard-packed earth
in search of moisture and nutrients
since the day they were spiky seedlings,
roughly heeled-in by a sweating forester.
As each roadside plantation ultimately gave way
to paddocks, I’d twist in my seat to look back
at that characteristic wide grin, the gap-teeth
of their narrow, neatly trimmed trunks
and see myself as a pine tree.