C. K. Stead, from Straw Into Gold
The Magic Bagwash
Remember writing a story 10
years ago ended driving a
van 'The Magic Bagwash' north
of Auckland with the motto
'Everything comes out White'
parking on a coarse matt of
grass under pohutukawas
listening to waves flopping
and sighing those days when
Joni Mitchell sang 'Clouds'
and we marched for peace just
a fiction but now like
something that happened
'really' to someone really
young giving it away
cutting his losses. You know
how it is the human
spirit keeps on breaking
out but it was looking down
the long empty beach from
the van with its motto
under pohutukawas gave that
perfect past tense to what
the waves were saying.
C. K. Stead