Panorama of the orchard at Duffy's Farm
1994

The exact location of Duffy"s Farm and the orchard had eluded us for sometime. But I did remember Tommy Thompson (an old Brighton resident) saying that although he knew where it was, it had taken him years to find the location. We were grateful to Tommy who took us down there one winter's day, as without his help we could never have found the site. I knew the light would not be kind but there seemed little else but to find the orchard and get the shot as the weather was bound to turn worse in the next few weeks. We found the spot where the old farm house stood and now stands a barn build by Trevor Gordon, a victim of another kind. A clay road winds down to the orchard which is completely overgrown and abandoned. It seems it was planted by the Chinese in the late 1800s and there are rock embankments and forgotten roads winding further off into the hills. Positioned in a gully it looks down onto the Brighton River and across to Lawrence Jones' house. Initially it seemed impossible to find the right image until we found this tree. It was actually a pear tree and not an apple tree, but the peculiarity of the ladder and the overturned tree stated clearly here was the image that we were after.

Apple Tree   1960   CP

from that high tree, my love
that somehow bent in Eden----

undo the stubborn bolts and enter
where none have gone before, your body
is my wild apple tree, my poor man's treasure.

A View From Duffy's Farm   1966   CP

She died like a bird
in the frost- No ghost no one will haunt here, because the door is mercifully broken
as hearts, lives, rocks break
Down there under twisted apple trees
That bear no fruit, a river.

The tiredness of me and Herakles  CP

My troubles began with an apple -
the apple that he plucked from the oldest tree
Burned in his hand like a sun.

All tracks led outward then. I did not see
How bones and apples rot under the tree]

In cocksford grass, or guess the size
Of the world, a manuka nut in the sun's gaze.