Written piece
Forestry Death: an elegy
Rozelle Pharazyn
New Zealand
About this piece
My son was killed at work in a commercial pine-forest in 1998, leaving a wife and two small children. Sometimes grief is suspended until some other event precipitates it. Forestry's degradation of land & danger to workers makes it a contentious activity in New Zealand,
Forestry Death : an elegy
Twentyfive years from your birth,
My beautiful boy,
I drive with Michael over the
Kaweka, where
You'd been killed at breakfast time
on last New Year's Eve.
All around us littered slopes:
A random, hectic
Tumble of dead pine trees lies,
A battlefield of corpse tree.
To what end? we ask.
We purr on down to Napier,
The Di'monds and Shoes
Anthem on endless
Repeat in my head,
Pours down my face, a torrent
Of wasted life blood