YOUNG MAORIS COME TO TOWN

They come to the cities from the coast and inland farms
The young bronzed ones, leaving no trace among the mamaku,
Their voices stilled along the ridges of the rain-forests,
Remembered only by grandmothers in shawls who, with poignant gesture
Point towards the distant north and sigh.
They come with fear and caution trembling in their looks of appraisement,
Not knowing but sensing the new ways different from
And so far removed from the kumara paddock and paddling on the river.
The happy deep of the ways of earth and fish and sea is left behind,
Though still in the blood tide flowing, whispers, and no Jezebel city
Shall entirely absorb the young bronzed ones from the coasts and tired inland farms.

CHALK WHITE AMONG THE
SPLINTERED SHELLS

Bare, like the deer forests in the hills,
The logs shiver in the river's flow
And here a small boy cries his joy
Amidst the water-smooth rocks and stones
That frame Rakaia's slow scuttle to the sea.
Lost lamb bleating on the Plain
And small boy crying his joy
Kicking at the cluster of moa-bones
And fragments of the moa-hunter's thigh
Chalk-white among the splintered shells
Of ancient middens, hidden
In the river's burndened soil.
Over the bones of the dead
And the shells that ring of the sea,
A kotuku lies, wounded in the wing.
That night the small boy dreams
On a bed of feather boulders,
Of chiselled thighs and swivelled shells
And a moa bleating on the Plains.
And still in dreams
The lost lamb sleeps
While the kotuku files south
To the rain forests of Okarito.

•

The Rev. Hemi Potatau, of Opotiki, has been appointed moderator-designate of the Maori synod of the Presbyterian Church, and will take up his new position at the beginning of next year.

The present moderator, the Rev. J. Irwin, will become principal of the Maori Theological College, Whakatane, at that date.

Mr Potatau was born at Nuhaka, Hawke's Bay, and received his education there and later at St Stephen's College, Auckland, and Scots College, Wellington.

•

Elders at a meeting at Manukorihi Pa, Waitara, have agreed that a memorial be erected to the famous Ngatiawa chieftain, Wiremu Kingi te Rangitake.

The meeting, attended by Maoris from many parts of the North Island, was held to commemorate the 33rd anniversary of the death of Sir Maui Pomare. Mr Rakaherea Pomare, son of Sir Maui, spoke to members of the Ngatiawa tribe, official guests and visitors who had gathered at the pa for the commemoration, and presented a large silver cup for competitions on behalf of his mother.