Death of a Dream

by kiwisteveh

Times were hard and getting harder in our sleepy little town;
Luck had hit a rocky bottom - then had kept on drillin' down.
An' them that had an ounce of sense had packed their bags and fled,
But we, poor fools, like Murphy's mules, had stuck it out instead.

Us kids, we all wore hand-me-downs since Ginty's Mill had closed;
There were patches on our patches - that was normal, we supposed.
We had meat to eat on Sundays, but don't ask me what it were-
Though Monday's soup was greyish gloop of boiled-up bones and fur.

One day, way down by Big Bing's Bush, I met this strange galoot,
With spotless, shining city shoes and a fancy city suit.
"I say, young man," this geezer purred, "may I seek your assistance?
I'm in the lurch when on the search for wetas - each one's sixpence."

**********************

Dear readers, please forgive me if I spend a while digressin'
For it could be that you missed, one day, that Nature Studies lesson.
A bug that's most misunderstood, the common garden weta,
Is seldom met by those who get a latte with their feta.

If you're creepy-crawly-phobic, then I guess you'd run a mile,
Cos there's somethin' quite alarmin' 'bout a weta's friendly smile.
See, he's big and brown and scaly like a cancerous carbuncle-
All spines and legs, Ma Nature's dregs, a roach's nightmare uncle.

But he's really rather lovely, he won't nip you if you're gentle,
Just don't drop one down Suzy's front, she's liable to go mental!
He's not noted for destruction or malicious interference;
Like snail and slug. this ugly bug's maligned for his appearance.

*********************

Turns out this city-slicker sort was somethin' scientific
Who thought inspectin' insects was a pastime quite terrific.
I shook his hand, I sealed the deal, inside my brain was buzzin'-
Me arithmetic I'd worked out quick - six shillings for a dozen.

My head it whirled with dreams of wealth, I'd be my fam'ly's saviour;
I'd be lauded and applauded for exemplary behaviour.
Before his back was turned I'd found the first of my collection
Without a thought that what I caught was headin' for dissection.

Through gulleys full of tea-tree, up hill, down dale, I plodded.
I peered and prised and poked and pried; each totara stump I prodded.
One dozen wetas in one hour, one dozen hours per day;
I'd plant my feet on Easy Street when I got my first week's pay.

Still my head was full of numbers, they was whizzin' round and round-
Twelve hundred wetas, more or less - t'was close to thirty pound!
We'd eat roast beef three times a week, there'd be new clothes for all-
Can't be denied, that kind of pride is headin' for a fall.

I'd made a weta prison out of plywood from the shed
And I kept those critters captive in a box beneath my bed.
There'd be pleasure for the buyer and a treasure for the seller-
Next day the Prof would cart them off and I'd be Rockefeller.

Was it carelessness at lock-up time or just a twist of fate?
At dawn a thousand wetas simply burst out from their crate.
Angry, hungry, out they marched, a well-drilled insect army;
By instinct urged, onwards they surged, a terrible tsunami.

Six thousand feet a-scuttlin' swiftly jolted me awake
As a tragedy unfolded and my heart began to break;
There were thirty in the pantry, there were fifty in the sink,
A hundred more hopped out the door before I'd time to think.

The dog slunk frightened from his bed with weird, unearthly wail,
A weta tangled in each ear and five more on his tail.
My sister Suzy started screaming, waking brother Davy
Who thundered out and mashed about creating weta gravy

Now Dad was in the 'Reading Room' - what we called his long retreat-
When six big wetas scrambled out from underneath the seat.
Well, his screamin' woke the echoes and they fiercely answered back-
A wily one had sought to run, for refuge, up a crack.

There are wetas that are runners, there are wetas that are stickers;
Seems several of the latter sort had stuck on Mother's knickers.
Now, I love my parents dearly, they're not prone to acts aggressive,
But what came next left me perplexed and bordered on obsessive,

For my mother took a frying pan, my father took a spade
An' they whomped on ev'ry weta there that wriggled, breathed or prayed.
Now my buttocks still are stingin' and my backside's fiery red;
When they couldn't get a weta then they whaled on me instead.

In the midst of all the ruckus, as I shuddered, weak and shivery,
My friendly vivisectionist rolled up to take delivery.
There was not a living weta to be found for miles around'
My toil and pain had been in vain - farewell my thirty pound!

There I stood amongst the carnage and my lip began to twitch;
How I mourned my friends the wetas who'd been goin' to make me rich.
Oh, they say a loving family's the only thing that matters,
But it's tragic when the magic of a dream is torn to tatters

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Mistakes in grammar and the dropped 'g' at the end of words is a deliberate indication of the colloquial speech of my young narrator.

The weta is a large, flightless insect, endemic to New Zealand. There are a number of species including the giant weta and the tusked weta, but the one described here is the tree weta. They resemble a large grasshopper, but the back legs are greatly enlarged and spiny. They live in holes in trees.

Tea-tree (also known by its Maori name manuka)is a native New Zealand tree which quickly re-populates cleared land.

Totara (properly pronounced as three syllables toe-ta-ra but here I have used the common pronunciation in two syllable toe-tra) is another native tree. Both species provide ideal habitats for tree wetas.

Very loosely based on a true story....

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Weta, weta everywhere....

A chapter in the book Steve's Story-Poems

Death of a Dream

by kiwisteveh

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