This is Foreign Land.

See our city reflected in the harbour.

Skyscrapers, church spires, and city lives,

distorted by velvet folds of rippling water.

Wellington is an island,
connected to the rest of this land by sea.

We speak different words here,

all a new language.

By custom and by fashion,

this is all but foreign land.

Drink we not water,

but sustenance derives from small coffee cups.

A world of liquid black gold

embracing cappuccino harbour.

Dress we against wind,

and it undresses us.

Upturned umbrellas

and snatched-at skirts,

blowing hard against the solace of souls.

Down Ngaio Gorge,

round motorway corner 

and grand harbour opening-

This is Wellington now.

But evening star rises,

Shines bright over silhouette hills-

They see it too.

In Cape Reinga, Bluff,

all here below a southern cross.

On sunshine days

                          we drop airs, don jandals,

dive waves, light barbies-

perhaps like Kiwis after all.

Through love affairs

with Artisan beer,

and long black lunches,

at our truest we know

                                                          It's sunshine on ocean that's liquid gold after all.