Chinese Settlement, Arrowtown

Christmas Eve 2002

Walk from the township through the police camp
not far from the river where the purple and pink
lupins and yellow broom flower. See the poplars
shed sticky white seeds through the air,
on branches and leaves, over the dry ground
like fresh wool caught on fences
like dreams of a foreign (white) Christmas.
Here, Ah Gee was found hanging,
Old Tom pitched forward
burned black in his fireplace,
Kong Kai, excellent cook and blind of one eye,
found up Eight Mile Creek, his clothes
spread over his bones, £70 in his pocket.
Now only relics of chimneys, a huge depression
where Su Sing’s store once stood, a few huts
and rock shelters, restored/reconstructed
or not. A sign points the way to the cemetery.
At each of the doorways, a woman
has left white roses.