Home
 

I see your eyes flicker at me, child, 
see you remembering the tales you think you've heard of me, 
and trying privately to fit this greying frame
with all the tales of passion and of flight;

with this old woman in the starlight
telling you her tales. 
 

I see you asking if it's true, and what the love of gods 
is like, and wondering, perhaps, who I may be. Though at the least
I hear you muttering in your mind, the beer is good, 
and though I'm mad
you've had good stories since the dawn. 

I see your sense of shock, to know that I still dream 
of him, and shifting in the dark stretch out my palm to touch him
longingly, and feel his breath as he leans over me, and hear his voice
calling the soul of me in quiet content, to be with him. 

Yes, even now, and after all this separateness, 
hard-edged 
within me
like a gasp between my self 
and my own flesh
is love of him 

and whether I mean mine for him, or his for me
I do not know.

Only that when I wake these cheeks of mine 
are washed already in the tears which in the night do flow, 
and I rise aching, not from painful bone, but from a loss

loss of a part of me, so long ago. 
 
 

You ask, "How did we meet?" and what I thought, and how this
came to be, and dare not say the words which flinch 
deep on the outer edge of mind
so, 
I will answer you, as best I can with faltering syllable 
and shaking hand, 
and hope you have some semblance of the warm and quivering
flesh of it, from this strange flimsiness of spoken word.

Out of the River I had come, 
and twisting as I flicked the water heavy hair 
out of my face, I saw him.

Like a blow, solid with joy
the pleasure 
of the quiet glad 
I saw him on the knoll 
and seeing knew him, utterly

or so I thought. 

He stood, light as a dragon fly 
upon a fern frond by the stream, 
and bathed in light. 

So straight
and lordly bore his head 
high topknot gleaming in the shadowed sun

my breath took back its being and my soul 
was caught into the soft searching of his eye
merry and quizzical, and half in doubt
he looked at me 

and I was joy
the seeing
 him. 

Nor do I yet know how first we came so close, 
or if I ran to him or he embraced me where I stood, 
only his arms were home, were part of me

as if I'd dreamed him all my life, 
and sought for him, and called him singingly
in dreams and dabblings, 
and in my wanderings in the bush -

 who holds me, even now:
 by whose strong hands my flesh is woken, 
 in whom my soul found rest.

Even today
I have been known to turn
blinded in sleep to call his name,

or feel his hand upon my thigh or 
hear his voice, his tenderness. So it was then, 
as if I'd always known 

this strength, this grace, this sense of 
coming home 

so without thought or doubt, 
I laid my head upon him like a landed bird, 
found rest. 

my skin thirsts for him and my hands 
rest less for touch of him 
than for the hunger that they felt

with this strange, heavy, lightness in the bone
completion and longing, 
yearning and spinning
 belly and groin

how like a groan the cry of ecstasy 
the flicker of pleasure in the song of bone.
Oh I would like, with him, to feel his 

strength, toetip to crown of me, and lying so
in peace to turn my head to see his face 
looking and searching mine, 
bending to kiss me breath to breath

And so it was. His hands upon my back, 
drawing me into him, and we were one. 
 

After
 we lay upon the grassy bank
and laughed without good reason 
as I've heard, even occasional lovers do, 
and touched and stroked and smiled
and looked into each others face, and smelled
scent of each others skin, and laughed again.

He put his arm around me, drew me close 
and laughed into my face and murmured 
like a time worn joke, 
so "Tell me girl, your name?"

Still laughing I replied, "You have it right, 
for 
Hine ahu One is my name" and he 
 fell still, 
still as a rock in sunlight as the cloud 
 goes by, 
his arm stone rigid as he searched 
my face - Oh, for a long moment where he lay, 
looking into me, as one

receiving a blow, accepting a truth, paying
a private price; taking commitment
like a quiet grace; and drew me closer, breathing 
on my face. 
 "Then Hine, 
 Hine ahu one
 Earth born one, 
I choose 
 to take you home" 

   and so he did. 

Lifting me, he stood and curled me in his arms 
and swung me as a child is swung and laughed
his challenge to the sky
 called trees to witness 
he had found himself his bride
 his song of earth

So from the knoll, the marriage knoll
  he bore me, 
walked free and tall and bore me, with unbated stride.

Home through the quietened forest 
to a broad swept glade, where stood 
the pillar doors of Tane, marked his hide. 
 

there on the earth he placed me where
 the door post stood, the miracle of living tree
 his story told,
 the twisted enfolding
  of the story of this man, 
so like a god in living gentleness and naked power
 with all he is

head on one side, he looked at me, 
 while I gazed up into the growing 
 door tree, saw it speak, 
 already,
 word  of me.

 Here in the pillar was the sign
 Whirling and folded in the wood;
 Great, overreaching Rangi, 
 Tenderly entwined, 
 the song of god, deep etched 
 and rolling

 and Papa, Mother earth, the great embracing
 nurturer, enfleshing life, his mother
 was, and he - out of her womb was come, 
 and nuzzled her great tides of soul, 
 and learned the passages of earth, 
 the tides of sky, and reached between them
 with his love, to search and know them both
 and from that love had grown
 

 whose shoulders stretched the sinews of the sky, 
 who knew his Mother's inner strengths embracing him
 who used their love, his searching strength
 to brace him as he stood, 
 to part them; 
felt their being enter him
  seeking to mingle through the flesh
 of him who parted them
 so like a tree, a totara, in whom lived earth and sky, 
 great Tane, tall and strong, the watcher and the 
 guard
 
  Whose mind and love
 changed utterly
 our walking on this earth.

 There, close by him, I saw
 myself already drawn, and cast a breath of wonder
 while he looked at me silent 
 attentive, and half musingly.

 It seemed no miracle to me
 to see myself already traced there
 on the posts of home. I knew
 he'd searched for me
 as I'd, half knowing, 
 dreamed of him

        and so I
 traced the carving 
 with a quiet mind, and knew, 
  Hine, with Tane came..

Softly exhaled, like some relief
 or trouble fathomless, 
I heard him say my name, 
 and felt his hand take mine. 
  and gently we did walk among the trees 
 under the hard watching moon. 

 I was at peace, and felt myself at last
  come home. 
 Hine to Tane, came
  and so 
        came home.