This is not my home - edited

[just mercedes]

 
Edit #1 


My mother birthed me in a wild, abandoned place
amidst acres of thick silence. In Spring, pink patches
and white stood out on the hills, foreign flags 
in all our green, marking abandoned mission 
orchards; cherry trees, pears, apples, peaches. 
Raspberry and blackberry thickets, clumps 
of strawberries, spread along creek flats 
through plantings of potatoes, puha, corn. 
Missionaries came, and changed us. 

Our people learned to sing their songs, eat 
their food, dress their way, be grateful, learn
the new language, but secretly they mourned. 
Depression followed. Lethargy. Alcohol. 
My father battled these through all his life. 
Then he died. 

‘It’s not my responsibility’ I tell him. 
‘Stay out of my moe’ I tell him.

He says our home is Waikato, where
the first prophet-warriors spoke. He says
we resisted their god, opposed their theft
of our lands; their army came. We buried 
our gods in our swamps, as always
before battle. 

The settlers won; they drove us away. 
We left our gods; they rejected us. Now 
they want us to return, take back our land, 
release them.

I haven't travelled there. My father waits. 
He says our land hungers for me, as it hungers 
for Spring. He pleads.



Thanks to all who helped. 
 
 

First draft


My mother birthed me in a wild, abandoned place.
Acres of thick silence, in all directions. In Spring, 
patches of pink and white stand out on the hills
like foreign flags in all the green, marking the mission 
orchards; cherry trees, apples, peaches. 
Raspberry and blackberry thickets, clumps 
of strawberries, spread along creek flats 
through paddocks of potatoes, puha, corn. 
The missionaries came, and changed us. 

Old ways of living destroyed, overcome by loss,
the people mourned. Privation followed. 
Lethargy. Alcohol. My father battled 
this through all his days. Then he died. 
‘It’s not my responsibility’ I tell him. 
‘Stay out of my moe’ I tell him.

He says my home is Waikato.
When first prophet-warriors spoke 
even the ancestors changed sides 
and everything became confusion. 

I haven't travelled there. He waits. He says
my land hungers for me, as it hungers for Spring. 
He pleads.



(moe - Maori for dreams)
puha - native green vegetable, like dandelion greens