NTl

A special place where history
Turns and breathes in landscape.
Among our memories, a stir of
Earlier vision whose pulse transfixed
Stiff upper lip, black maria.
Your cool-green hills, sanctuaries
Of old intent, now relax their brows.

Mapping our growing nation still
Challenges, less introspective though,
More released in the farmer's grandson.
Blue-collared, on the move between
Lecture and seminar, manual and instrument,
He meditates the application of a thought.
Your valleys adjust their flanks, fluently

Embrace the gifted places,
The Chinese garden, sun-dial,
Green roofs whose ancestral voices,
Now turned tropical in accent, fit
These new splendours of your heart
Whose powers expand, rise, disperse
Along our arteries, providing swift
Co-ordinates, cutting-edges to economy.

Here is science that engineers
The bold coherence of our lives.
Transformers, semiconductors, micro-chips,
Energy control, hydrology, automation,
A rainbow's spectrum, the sun's secret core...
Instil patterns of skill as midmorning winds
Assert the day's rhythm, the new learning,

All feeding this mortal, invented island,
Held above the foam, the world's fever.

Edwin Thumboo

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