Poetry has been inset into the wall that sets off the Marine Parade in Queenstown, New Zealand.

You have to love a place that puts poetry on the town sea wall.

Queenstown, a pretty resort town set on Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand, has a long stone wall that separates a tiny lakeside beach from the Marine Parade. (Isn’t that a great name for a walk beside the water?)

The poem chronicling the history of the surrounding Otago region was written by Kiwi poet David Eggleton. The words were sandblasted by sculptor Stuart Griffiths into a ribbon that winds through the stones of the wall.

Eggleton’s poem is filled with beautiful similes and metaphors, words I found myself repeating because they sounded luscious as ripe sweet cherries. Trite, compared to Eggleton’s, I know.

I wanted to remember my favorite so I took a picture of it —

“Ice crystals, turning weeping willows into frozen chandeliers.”

What an image. And so perfect along this lovely lake where, in the distance, I could make out the bright white of the glacier that feeds this body of water.

I’d like to write like that.

Ⓒ Text and photo Mary K. Tilghman