of powers and powerless

a space waka

rocketing to another orb

singing waiata to the spheres

47

beams emanate from Mother Mary’s

head – the baby in its crib

donkey expectantly leans his head

this frame is in our bedroom

yet there are emanations

from the breathing of our daughter Eileen

dim light exiting from Temuera’s room

they frame our thoughts

at times lifting our eyelids

when they are shut for business

Anne, lying next to me, feeds her again

she turns around and sleeps

kia pai to moemoea Eileen Te Aho

little star

48 (Bright 1)

Temuera says the sun

looks like a piece

of kauri gum

49 (environment 1)

will the next makers of waka

live in submarines

so threatened by the mechanical heat

of organised industry

treated like residents

of the Clyde Dam’s precincts

gold mines turned to sepia

populations moved to hills by sermons?

from the top

Clinton to reduce the gas by 2011

back to the ozone hole of 1990

(wish I could turn the clock back

tell the younger me

taihoa! but write more

about home

before he’s dammed

into poems clutching reeds

waka bobbing above)

50

It is the star to every wand’ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

A compass pointing North past Canada

to push this crew furthest South with angles,

crow’s nest for a shout, the headland!

A mass the rest of the crew discover –

people to convert, flat stretches, rolls of fat

turned up to summits, dense green

of black intensity, the only common law

Newtonian – a karaka berry will fall from its tree.

Aged heads of kauri are the afros of the land,

huge rastas, proudest beings of these South Seas.

Converted to spars for the crown fleets

victories for Downing St. A new reggae nation

ready for tilling and sharing; imagine, oh beasts,

birds of Europe, oh vegetables, fields,

the great yields for roots and guts we have discovered!

Begin the definition of these islands –

let circumnavigation precede acquisition.

Let ambiguities of Tahitian allow us excuses

for our reasons – musketry and the barrel

to raise the sheilas’ piupiu, the parson

to peel men off for their eyes.

What is gallantry these days

but by Mitsubishi? Who interprets history?

Who stores the manuscripts and books

of the lost? In time’s fair mind

we have objectivity, but for generations

it is no release from captivity – we are pharoah’s

possessions, and as each pharoah succumbs

to the coin, dragging the bags

across the Tasman into the holy see,

we watch and wait for justice. Justice

for inclusion in the proletariat. Justice

for compliance by salary. Justice

for revoking our guardianship of all

the eye can see in the imposition

of adversarial law. Justice for our apathy.

Justice the person who sits at the bench.

We wait for the Justice Bus.

We wait for the Liberty Bus.

We watch the New Zealand First Bus

wheels go round and round

and the faces inside smiling