yet the word Maori

means ordinary

this

is a rearguard action –

up shit creek without a paddle

– who’d want to put a waka in that!

xix

Rata felled the tree

without leave from Tane

and so the leaves, chips

twigs etcetera

were reassembled each

evening – the hollow

waka shell undone

until thanks were given –

in the modern day

we have a PM

who asks Maori to give

thanks

for the settlement

process – the process

undoes the waka alright

but it puts back empty

trunks all over the land –

some of them

still standing

xx a whakapapa construction

not the ski-field I’m afraid

or talk of Rata descended from Tawhaki

descended from Maui Tikitiki a Taranga

or even mention of the nights –

the great night the long night –

not the intensity of blacknesses involved

in coming through the layers –

not the lines dangling from the heavens

Tawhaki at one end his beloved above him –

these lines are a whakapapa

in themselves – ten years

of door knocking and practice

on roughs and finishes –

pushed to fluidity – one knows

the narrator should be quite dead

yet in a whakapapa the last line

should be the speaker’s

kia ora

xxi Te ao marama I

Aotea

Square

where the riot started

the closest I got was picking up Dad

from work in Newmarket –

the police cordon began

a hundred metres

up Khyber Pass

then watching it all

on telly.

In the Centre I saw Don Giovanni

starring Kiri Te Kanawa,

and a few other operas.

In the old Town Hall I asked

a question about seniority

at the NLGOU stopwork meeting.

Often I cross the Square

on my way home – skateboarders

try to scare pedestrians,

but I ignore them. Today

I noticed the banners

for a Maori convention,

big business.

It reminds me of seventh form Classical Studies,

the spectacle of the Colosseum pit

filled with water for mock

naval battles;

and panem et circenses.

xxii Te ao marama II

Kurahaupo

Kura kaupapa, kohanga reo, kura tuarua –

all schools to advance the Maori culture.

Kurahaupo was a waka. Recently

waka have performed a similar function.

They have travelled with us

through the evolution of legends

and the tongues our legends use.

Waka spring from our unconscious,

the deep structure of Polynesia

to reappear in the modern world.

In 1990 I went to the Waitangi celebrations.

Walking through Paihia to the Treaty Grounds

I passed waka taua, pahi, waka ama;

fibreglass, wooden, carved and painted –

these waka were paddled, shipped,

trucked from all over on an oily rag.

Their resurrection propels our iwi

into the new age: vehicles for a revival.

xxiii Formats (1)

sepia

paint

text

video

dat

email

html

doc files

water

cd rom

cd photo

waka

xxiv Formats (2)

ego in the strokes

restorations

revivals

hands-on chisels

hands to paddles

each motion

creating motion

across Raukawa

down Te Wai Pounamu

waka for the foothold

to haul a fish