High Country Weather Alone we are born, And die alone. Yet see the red-gold cirrus, Over snow-mountain shine. Upon the upland, Ride easy stranger. Surrender to the sky, Your heart of anger. - James K. Baxter Jerusalem Pilgrimage When planning this journey, I knew one of the places I wanted to visit was the Whanganui River and in particular the tiny settlement of Jerusalem where the poet James K Baxter established a community in the 1960s. When he died in 1972 he was buried there. Baxter was a hugely controversial figure, besides being probably our best poet. I was intrigued to see the place where he’d spent much of the last decade of his life First the Church I arrived in Jerusalem mid-afternoon during a break in the weather. At some point in his life Baxter
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