Me he korokoro Tūī
dark flint in flight
tuft of white, on mātara chest
a shuttlecock dive;
Tūī
he carves a path on leaf-vane heights
kōwhai to rātā he quests
dark flint in flight
with a swish and a skip, this gadabout sprite
sips nectar upon pūriri’s crest
a shuttlecock dive;
a burst, a flurry, a nod - ever slight –
whisking sweep to lady-built nest
dark flint in flight
she rests upon eggs, in voice’d delight
her warbling song, pitch-pure, expressed
a shuttlecock dive;
Tūī
loops between worlds, crow-feathered; bright
spirit voyager, from deepest west
dark flint in flight
a shuttlecock dive;
Tūī
Note: Me he korokoro Tūī means as sweet sounding (or as sweet throated) as the Tūī bird, like the throat of the Tūī or the call of the Tūī. It is a Kōrero taiao, a Māori saying from nature which refers to someone having a beautiful singing voice.
Glow
draped clusters, wind blown
te ura o te Kowhai
her grace, Kereru
women’s refuge
fingernails
on a gloved hand
bitten to the
quick! we must go now!
brown shabby
suitcases
packed again
I am Taniwha
there was once one
one
of the tribe
he stood
within peace
where river met sea
were the shapeshifting shores of the
of
then, for a long time
and a long time
when my presence
and so people connected me to
not the harbinger of death
I am life!
I am the Spirit of this Place
I am the voice of the land
ancestor
feel me rise within you
The story of un-red Arthur
I am atavist:
a throwback, having an ancestor’s characteristics that have skipped a few generations; where imperfect DNA has crept down the gen-aisles, on tides steeped in an unsettled past; settling, imbedding in voluble heart, impunitive head. I am related through these meandering ties; hereditary vein-wires; to the agitator
Arthur
As a child he built the first radio in his community; in the local hall. Later, he built the printing press for writers, to talk about the rights of the ‘working man,’ and the freedom of speech. He was a speaker on wharves without permits, and, according to the authorities a ‘Pamphleteer of Seditious Literature,' a ‘pernicious firebrand,’ and so-called ‘Communist Editor’. Even (‘oh dear’)
‘Objector’
He lived through uneasy depression, mid World Wars; not forgetting the Spanish Civil War, where many with a heart and a pen went, to experience (such torments of betrayal and scorched humanity)… Even here, in New Zealand, was it wise to think aloud, or in earnest? To upset, or disrupt, the loyal tax churners? Socialists, anarchists, feminists - all ‘damn Reds’ Frustrated, the status quo was only going
nowhere
Arthur, this flouter-man of fickle facades, found he couldn’t abide in picket fence yards; with their pretty posies, pilloried people in white plaster homes; the stucco of stigma’s hypocritical bones. He was a troublemaker, in continual dissent, this forbear forlorn, torn askance from homely paens. Cast out. Quietly advised to ‘go away,’ Australia say. It was that, or prison again. And so it was, he was driven from kiwi
shores.
This antecedent, malcontent, went, with his ephemeral feet, like imprints in wet cement (the family business in cement came later to the ones that he left behind). He was spoken of afterwards in low, hushed tones, no niceties. A dismissal of his ‘vices’, those heart-felt crimes. This man, denied. A cornerstone in my own atavistic dawning. A genes
re-calling
Progenitor
of dis-obeisance and social conscience innate;
Arthur, you are remembered
