Thursday, September 29, 2016

28 Maori Battalion Returns:

This is what I recall of the Maori Battalion soldiers returning after WW2. The battalion were a huge part of Maori culture of the post war period and soldiers were welcomed back to every marae in Aotearoa. 

Home At Last

1.
I did not see them go
But neat uniform 
Khaki from neck to ankle wraps
Then polished boots
Beret tilted laconically 
To a victory salute
We're home we're home at last we're home
That's what I saw in 46.

2
What a week that was
Two only another mourned in Crete
They came by taxi to end of road
Then horse and gig to old marae
Hall and lean to kauta
No different from when they left.

3. 
Blind mother saw son with fingers
Another with dimming eyes
Saw handsome shadow
Tears tangi speeches and waiata
Welcomed them and farewelled son in Crete.

4.
In lean to men and boys 
Heard war stories from Greece, Crete, Egypt
Libya, Sicily, Monte Casino, Firenze, 
And Trieste at last.
Yeah they said so casually
We saw action here and there
And R and R in Cairo
And E hoa ma 
28 shot at German planes with rifles

5. 
They even showed us shrapnel wounds
No worse than rugby scars
But
The wounds of heart mind and psyche
At horrors seen
Exploding mayhem nightmare fears
Wounded screams and pain
Machine gun body halved
Remained unsaid
Just laughing soldiers home again at last.

6.
Us kids thought war fun
Cowboy and Indian movie like
Boys on horse back
Cap gun shoot outs after school.

7.
But wounds of war
Aue
Showed much later
Long after keg was drunk
And war songs slurred away
To a silent end.



Wednesday, September 14, 2016

All Those Stars In Space

I'm no poet. However, I am struck by the euphemisms cultures and traditions like Maori create to explain beliefs in death. Here are some:


Kua wheturangitia:                          He/She has been turned into a star

Kua taka ki tua o te arai:                 The spirit has fallen below the horizon.

Kua ea te Wairua ki tona haerenga: The Spirit is free to go on its journey.


When the late Rowley Habib of Tuwharetoa passed away I thought I'd try to express his passing with euphemisms expressed in poetry. Rowley was an able poet, dramatist and writer of short fiction.

Where The Sun Sets

It's true what we say 

About your star arching gently 

Across  the sky

We watch intently

Will it stop, pause even

But it arcs relentlessly on

Suffer not while you soar

Smooth the pathway light up the dark

Then drop below the horizon

At your appointed time

It matters not whose right

Missionary or us

Our own stars are in their trajectory

In the infinite milky ways of Heaven

One is you another me

And there's the horizon to another world

Beckoning where the sun sets.