Her fingers swayed,
tracing imaginary lines
on the distant mountains
on the other side of the valley.
The lines finessed
from finger
to stark gouges
in the landscape.
Where once there was
rugged bush covered undulations,
now
a semi civilised set of tracks,
maybe even dirt roads.
It was too hard to see
from this vantage point,
but they sure looked like
they could be roads.
I stood
and stared
at this inconceivable feat of magic.
Maybe she had slipped something in my drink.
Was I now a drugged date,
or was it really
as it all seemed?
Crystal reality—
that’s what it looked like to me.
No ifs,
buts,
or maybes.
She had done the impossible.
So I kept staring.
Looking for cracks in this mirage to form,
waiting for the mirror
to shatter.
It didn’t.
What to make of this then—
this miracle,
this masterpiece,
this optical manipulation
that defied the imagination?
And to what end?
Was this goddess
(for this is what she seemed to be to me)
planning something bigger,
or was this some strange party trick
designed to impress me?
Well,
without a doubt,
she did.
And then
they appeared.
Suddenly—
a cloud of dust,
and in it:
movement.
At first: only dust—
the tracks throwing up a veil,
distance doing the rest.
Then sound.
A distant rumble
inside the haze,
gathering weight
as more of them arrived.
They flowed down the mountains,
pounding those illusory tracks
so recently formed—
surprising in any context,
but these buffalo
did not belong here—
not in Aotearoa.