Dogs bark me from sleep. Pale light through an open flap.
Grass swish. Twig snap. Whispers – and now this hush
a thread in the book of my dreaming – a threat?
I wake to myself – John Flatt, crossing the Kaimais
from Matamata down to the Bay of Plenty.
The forest lifts dark arms to that billowing light
expecting song. Why are its choristers silent?
Fear won’t dispel this well-being of my waking.
Black hair, brown shoulders. I watch them climbing the track,
young warriors, armed – but stones, bare hands would serve
to wipe my dream-slate clean of trade and farming,
my unborn children and their children’s children.
I give them welcome, ask are their mokos smiling.
A tui answers. It speaks of flax in flower
last spring by the Mission House. They came with baskets
of human flesh and picnicked on the lawn.
An outrage, yes. But an answer to our Message.
We could eat our God. They would eat their enemies.
Tent, clothes, bedding, axes, everything is taken.
Only my horse they leave – they have not seen one
And seem to fear it. ‘Muru,’ their leader explains.
Clothed in my understanding I’m left on the track
Through a cold forest, twelve thousand miles from home.
I ride, singing to the One who made me naked.