Catherine Mair

Towards Her Wedding Day

Dropping down from Lake Taupo and the volcanic plateau the road risks its way through shades of violet and umber tussock land, deeper into dark, forested ravines.

mist clinging to ridges
veiling great Rimu, Totara
and Kahikatea trees

I imagine Katie driving the lonely miles in her 1981 Cortina, her champagne-coloured, silk wedding dress spread across the back seat. She comes bearing gifts—small boxes with two heart-shaped chocolates in each, and tied with fine green ribbon, for every guest. She has handcrafted the cream, beeswax candles for each table.

one passenger
her black, curly coated dog
tuned to Katie

The aloneness deepens in intensity, where that particular green, which is the New Zealand bush, presses close by, and above the road. In places it would be easy to let go and hurtle from the road, where it twists around precipitous corners, and plummet into one of the gun-metal, grey rivers.

forest-green service
booklets, packed in a shoebox
safe in the boot

Katie knows the patches on this road, over the ranges, where the black ice takes control of tyres, and spins cars over the brink into a vortex of air and the crunch of rock.

Sasha presses closer
to Katie’s leg—it’s barely
Springtime