Ten men to hold the wheel, children screaming,
our whole world shuddering, heaving, breaking –
how potent those words to calm us: ‘They that go down
to the sea in ships, that have business in great waters,
see the Work of the Lord and his Wonders in the deep.’
God who delivered us out of Leviathan’s jaws
has brought us here where welcoming thighs open
to the dark pathway. Better we had gone down
in that cold hell than in false paradise.
Dreams and mosquitoes plague me in my tent.
Marsden’s lash, Kendall’s lusts of the flesh –
where is our faith? Our half-drunk countrymen trade
muskets for women. The natives kill without rancour.
On still evenings I listen to small waves lapping
along the shoreline. It might be the language of God.
Our visitor put on green glasses and a wig.
We shouted ‘Atua!’. The natives ran from our table.
They say their recent dead go by this headland
on their way to Reinga. At night they hear them whistle.
I wonder – mocking their faith, do we mock our own?
For hillslope, riverflat and eastern bay was paid
fish-hooks, hoes, axes, blankets, trousers.
Also tobacco. The old chief made his mark,
eager to sell. Discreetly I asked him why.
He thought me mad. Had I never felt, he asked
south wind around bare shoulders? Shaped a bone hook?
Felled trees and carved with stone implements?
Tomorrow, next year, for ever the land would be there.
We could not take it away. Why did we value so little
iron axes, fish-hooks, trousers, blankets of wool?
Today our first plough turned New Zealand soil.
I walked behind two bullocks. Dark loam rolled out
like a bow wave. I thought of what is to come
and wished this day might be remembered well.
How fortunate we first! God speed the plough!
This evening on the estuary three canoes,
their chant preceding them – hoea! toia!
over still green water. Soft-voiced Hongi Ika
splendid in feathers, kai tangata, eater of men –
he paddles out of silence and into the past.
I give this moment to my kin-of-place
now and for ever. The seed of your growing is here
in this Bay of Islands. Europe is in our books
and in our boxes. We will unpack them slowly.
God save this bright air, these untroubled waters.