Shipping containers, gap-fillers and Other Things: UnZud part 3

Ode to Shipping Containers

Oh lovely shipping container, your chunky form delights.

Your squat and solid bottom planted firmly on the ground

Withstands the wrath of Nature, holds boulders at bay

Shoring up the crumbling cliffs and hiding the hills

Your long snaking wall along the Sumner coast

Offers art space

And can, with the help of a legion of New Zealand knitters, be quite cosy.

You are the embodiment of kia kaha* in broken Christchurch

I wonder if your ships miss you while you work so hard on land?

 

*Maori phrase  meaning be strong

Gap-fillers

So many gaps… Half of Christchurch, it seems, is a car-park. A razed rubble wasteland, grey and gloomy. Enterprising Cantabrians, refusing to take it lying down, have taken to filling the gaps with quirky installations – like these: 

 Dad and I went grocery shopping yesterday, and didn't even feel the 4.8 earthquake that rattled the city. Now, 4.8 is a sizeable shake, and it lasted about twenty seconds. Admittedly, the supermarket was noisy enough for us not to hear anything rattling, but I was surprised not to have felt anything. It made me think about the ridiculous and alarmist travel advisory put out by my own government, which was in yesterday's The Press.Oh dear, oh dear...