Karangahape Road just opposite the top of Queen Street, late in1936.
Upstairs in Howie Walker Dentist’s waiting room, a wailing two-year old.
His mother’s in the chair. He’s been excluded. Are they going to hurt her?
Patients waiting wish some saviour would take charge and shut him up.
One lady does. “A game, a game, I know a game. Would you like to play a game?
He brightens up a once his mother suddenly forgotten. Yes. He’d love to play.
He is taken to a window and seated at the sill. The rules are simple.
Trams come up the Queen Street hill and some turn left, some to the right,
And he must guess ahead of time which way they’ll go and so must she.
It soon becomes quite clear that she knows something that he doesn’t know.
His guesses are as often wrong as right but her’s are always right.
“How do you know?” he asks. She smiles a secret smile. “Let’s say it’s magic.”
AND IT WAS. A little later as a young initiate he is led into the mysteries
And learns to READ those magic runes inscribed on destination boards.
They lead him in adventure to remote parts of the earth and distant planets..
Their arcane powers make of him time traveller: history’s absorbed spectator:
Sit him disciple at the feet of wise men long since in their graves.
His view expands, encompassing the universe. She spoke more truly than she knew.