Rain Fish

Rain on this Island

Is wetting up all the dry

While my grandmother and I

Stay shut in to our car

Should we strip naked?

Jump into the pouring rain at

The place it meets this ocean

Aimlessly she agrees

Still neither of us attempts

The removal of these clothes

Instead we say

It is nice to be by the ocean

Even if we can’t be in it

Upon the glassy sand

We sit and look out

Wind down the window

Put our heads out

By the by a fisherwoman

Drives past and stops

Hands us two orange fish

We thank her happily

My grandmother says

Now we can go home

At least we didn’t come

For nothing

Over sandy roads

Through pine forest

We drive home again

Up the driveway my Koro

Laughs at us for being out

In the pouring rain

We smile and hand

Over our fish for gutting

He looks astonished

We say how bizarre

They just jumped

Into the car.

TraceyTawhiao(c)2011 & Artwork by ShonaTawhiao(c)2011

Matakana Morning

I sit at my kuia’s kai

Table a pane of glass

Reveals the church steeple

I’m not a christian

I prefer to be Maori

If I cut a hole in

The wall behind me

I’d have a view

Of our marae

Everything about me

Is in there

The morning dew

Cleans the earth

Preparing for

Another sunny day

My moon

Makes a poem

To blow

The night to day

Sipping tea

Scratching my head

Of living creatures

That knaw insistently

I wish I had  melting

Dew in me

To clean away

Natures appetite

Instead I scratch

And write and soon

I’ll have to spray

A dangerous concoction

To kill

What only wants

A home with security

On this unfolding day.

traceytawhiao(c)2011