On a Theme by Hone Taiapa - Hone Tuwhare

On a Theme by Hone Taiapa
- Hone Tuwhare

Tell me poet, what happens to my chips
after I have adzed our ancestors
out of wood?

What happens to your waste-words, poet?
Do they limp to heaven, or go down easy
to Raro-henga?

And what about my chips, when they’re
down—and out? If I put them to fire
do I die with them?

Is that my soul’s spark spiralling; lost
to the cold night air? Agh, let me die
another hundred times: eyeball

to eyeball I share bad breath
with the flared nostrils of the night.
For it’s not me I leave behind: not me.

Only the vanities of people:
their pleasure, their wonder and awe
alone remain.

Bite on this hard, poet: and walk careful.
Fragmented, my soul lies here, there: in
the waste-wood, around.

http://www.harvestbird.com/blog/2008/01/16/two-poems-by-hone-tuwhare/