N.Z.R.

over a deep blue night whiteness drifts, like the loose beard of one so old the hair is mist, wisps schoaling. and you, you're a man in a fog with a train around you. you're leaning close to the window, craning at the sky, where the image of the letters in this vessel worked in coloured glass are thrown upon the cloud, all their perfect ornament thrown, their neat compression held. peacock and ruby cuts in solid air spell the sign of the abbreviated tale. woodville to dannevirke, woodville to dannevirke. there was darkness, and then we had rail. if only eusebius....  but you once walked the long way yourself. once, a hundred times, and through the ruahines, and to the coasts. once at the side of pregnant elizabeth, and on alone.