on the beauty of the waka slicing

through concentration, through the vision

of the mind, lighting the architecture

of every dwelling, beauty of physical story,

water worn lines of brown bodies

sliding close to one another,

dipping and rising toward shore?

vii Reconnaissance

Highlights of the forest of the Lord Tane

were logged for the fleet. Fleet transport

and weaponry, food baskets and ancestors,

technology and carving: a greatness of hulls

and sails – ships for the mission – settlers going

to ground thousands of miles south-west, taking

their divinities, agriculture, animals, to inhabit

the strangeness of climate and soil reported

by the first expedition. The waka represent ancestors

in name and form. Their names are invoked today

and bind Maori people. Waka fight for yesterday

like it is tomorrow; war cries of orators line marae

with subjective recollections. Speakers

point out borders of land, which waka went

where, who guard harbours – voices modelling

land into history and lineage, driving up

highways of legend – much art is visual:

displays of beauty accessible to all

but the symbolism remains Maori

and will always be for Maori.

viii No

I cannot make this like maker of waka –

reach into my heart

heal wood of its rough cuts

take what isn’t mine to take

whittling and whittling

No

lines decked with paua

No

wooden crowns turned to warriors’ bowels

dreaming of the beauty of the vessel

fleets filling lakes and harbours

riding rivers in judgement

waka everywhere –

taking their contents to the settlements

what did they carry?

how can I tell you in confidence?

why is it that each time I stand

I sway? and the crew sways too?

star waka is in every waka –

land fell a thousand years ago

yet waka still searches for star

among all people

who have become stars

made stars in patterns on wood

and the justice of heaven

(which is black

remember

ix

and he tries to remember

but remembering is for things

of experience

these things he hasn’t experienced:

the timing of a hundred

following birds across an Ocean

diving into the Ocean

and coming back up

how huge an Ocean is

composing chants

to move people

across the Ocean

to set out from Hawaiiki

knowing the return is death

x Goldie (1)

he pads around downtown

spots the Toi Tamaki

Heritage Gallery’s picture

of the starving lost waka crew –

so realistic, ‘on the spot’ –

proof of early

anthropological puddings

just look at it,

where are the women,

the crops, tools, material

for settlement?

hey they were paddling

round the ocean

when they bumped

into Aotearoa

and were canvassed –

must be their account

xi

he and I suggest ways of narrating a story of waves

a billion billion of them to borrow a phrase

borrowed from the infinite numbers available

in telling an infinite story lapping the shapes

formed round land – a set of keys on a lap

landing there by mistake – a slip

and it all piles into the ocean mistook