Three Poems

by Dinah Moengarangi Rawiri

Taheke

They carried her to Taupiri
Amid the sighing of the green ferns
And the sound of the Kotuku
Winging its way to the sun.

Go then with the Kotuku
Mother of my Mother
Listen not to our weeping
Let it carry you in pride

For even Mother Papa sobs beneath our feet
For you,
Who have known her …
And loved …

She was very old
Mother of my Mother
Quiet, firm, and sure
The moko on her face
Proclaiming her right and her birth
To all those who could read

I am glad that she died now,
Before the quietness withered,
The resolve shook
And the surety trembled.

‘Ah Ruru, brown one,
I sit here, among the pillars
Of the temple of Tane
And hear you call softly in the darkness.

I do understand, brown one.’
With her passing
Has passed the lands of my ancestors
And the old proud age of my people.
I am glad that she died now
Before she too was engulfed by the storm
of a later tide,
Before she too was shattered,
By the tumultous tide of a new,
and paler,
sea.

Bethells

My ancestors named you
A name I have long since
Forgotten

And yet
I shall not forget
Your non-calm
Your primitive anger
And your twisted seas.

The edge of the world
Semi-circled, haunted
By the ghosts of my ancestors
And the still faces of a thousand
dead,

Turning,
Ever turning,
And swallowed again
Within your green-black troughs
And heavy
Mountain heavy
Seas.

Primordial, ancient
Sand, iron-grey,
Tussock,
Bleaknesses …
Glooming shadowed caves
Thundering, deafening
Green-black walls
Of water

And forbidding blacknesses
That rear like the pillars
Of a satan's temple
Glooming rock.

And wind that howls
Still
An unnameable
Unwombed howl of
Lostnesses.

And our coming
And our gentle, happy laughter
Our human-ness
Has left you undisturbed
As you seemingly have been Since the world began …

A whisper
Of unfet life …

A second
Along the aeons
Of your endeavour

There is
Just you
And the ending sea

Your sole companion

Sea, sand, wind, rock.
Bleaknesses,
Non-humanness,
Non-calm.
Primitive …
And pitiless …

The Resting Islands

The resting islands
Of the oldest living things on earth
Lulled by the muted sounds of birds
Who fear no predator.

Ancient land
Of primeval living things

Undisturbed by violence
And sudden death.

Creatures born of the air
Now
Wingless,
Unafraid
Shyly certain of their welcome
Upon the bosom of mother Papa.

Narrow gentle land
Of rain, mists, and glorious sun.

Stately stands of pink-grey kauri
And deep green-grey pine
Ferns of a thousand shades of
greens,
And silvers, and blacks,
Taro
Riotous in a land of unseeding?

Winding valleys between steep
Enticing gulleys
And murmuring sleepy streams
Mist-clad, mauve …

Warm, gentle …

Knowing nothing of clawed, fanged, sudden death.
Knowing nothing of sliding things of poison,
Knowing nothing of creeping, insidious things.
Innocent, slumbering
It seems that

Nothing is fearful here
Nothing is fearful that belongs here

That which is fearful
Sounds there …

The distant busy hum
Of the traffic of man …

‘Taheke’, the subject of the first poem, was the author's grandmother, and a daughter of the famous Te Whiti of Taranaki.

‘Bethells’, a beach on the West Coast of Auckland, is notorious for its many deaths. Ancient pa sites can be seen along the road to the beach.

The third poem, ‘The Resting Islands’, is written from memories of the Waitakere Ranges.