Rangihoua


Climb the pa and walk its ridgeback wet kikuyu

grass. At the top, spy the land from bays to

islands, dips to coves, as hills dissolve to sea.

Climb down to Rangihoua and rest under

Marsden’s cross. There, the sea—waist deep,

neck deep—the tide pulls out to the bay and

back to his-story.




He crossed the beach to reach the Māori world;

the foreshore, a strip of land between him and

those souls. The furrowed earth, ruled as the

pitsawn walls of his house, but the sea

encroached, lapping. His ruled life: the Māori

world, a series of waves. An English stone on

which the tide crashed. I swim in that sea.








Turning away

from the beach,

I follow a path to the head;

back between the hills, my eyes

will almost miss

his mark: a stone finger

pointing cloudward,

up, up, to the

smoothed sky.