Skep
It’s by-election day. Buzzwords
are out on signs in country towns
Horeke, Mangamuka, Whirinaki.
The harbour’s still as a milk vat.
My bro and I are the first visitors
for a week and possibly the last,
in the trim rebuilt mission house.
Mary Ann Bumby’s home
is honeycombed with notes –
sister of the Wesleyan minister
she brought two hives of bees
stacked with cinders above
and ice below to keep them alive
on a spending spree in Sydney,
delivered safely to Mangungu.
Trees burst with ripe quinces
and rosehips litter the porch
where three thousand tangata watched
a binding signing of Treaty papers.
Voting on the road, each small tick
skims into a vast blue morning.
Patuone, Heke, Rongo – tamumu
in my ear, tell me your whakaaro about
the sovereignty you did not sign away.
(Skep was previously published in Flash Frontier 2019)