04-07-2015, 11:06 AM
I pulled a part-written poem from the Too Hard basket and rewrote it - the prompt made it happen.
Memory, belonging, identity
I was born in the wasteland
of forests and gods, on the tail
of our fish, near the spirit trail
that leads to the place of leaving
between tide lines
along Ninety Mile beach.
The sea sang my first language
like heartbeats, wind keened
strange lullabies through ghost trees,
the forests of dead kauri
whose blood had become treasure
we all sought: Dallies, Maori,
and pakeha. We were the same
covered in mud.
Everyone was family there,
close around fires together
with darkness pressing at our backs,
outcast tribes in an outpost
on the edge of everywhere else.
Our songs
all sang of going out
and coming home,
cycles, circles, spirals,
in a language cobbled
from our three cultures.
Tides went
and came,
went and came.
Red blossoms dropped
to slow tangihanga
as waves carried them away.
Maybe today
the cave mouth will open
and show me the way home.
tail of our fish - New Zealand’s North Island is Te Ika a Maui, the fish of Maui, for the ancestor who caught and pulled up the country on a fish hook made from his grandmother’s jawbone.
Dallies - Dalmatians, refugees from the Balkans, gum diggers in the Far North
tangihanga - traditional mourning for the dead
The poem alludes to the Maori myth of the travels of the spirit after death.
Memory, belonging, identity
I was born in the wasteland
of forests and gods, on the tail
of our fish, near the spirit trail
that leads to the place of leaving
between tide lines
along Ninety Mile beach.
The sea sang my first language
like heartbeats, wind keened
strange lullabies through ghost trees,
the forests of dead kauri
whose blood had become treasure
we all sought: Dallies, Maori,
and pakeha. We were the same
covered in mud.
Everyone was family there,
close around fires together
with darkness pressing at our backs,
outcast tribes in an outpost
on the edge of everywhere else.
Our songs
all sang of going out
and coming home,
cycles, circles, spirals,
in a language cobbled
from our three cultures.
Tides went
and came,
went and came.
Red blossoms dropped
to slow tangihanga
as waves carried them away.
Maybe today
the cave mouth will open
and show me the way home.
tail of our fish - New Zealand’s North Island is Te Ika a Maui, the fish of Maui, for the ancestor who caught and pulled up the country on a fish hook made from his grandmother’s jawbone.
Dallies - Dalmatians, refugees from the Balkans, gum diggers in the Far North
tangihanga - traditional mourning for the dead
The poem alludes to the Maori myth of the travels of the spirit after death.