Not the taste of peach but its hard wrinkled stone
to suck on, bite. It’s so quiet in this grove,
the autumn air so still, peach leaves, apple leaves
falling. I think the dead come to me here –
the woman lost, her child, my uncle, cousins.
Three days they shelled us, stormed, sapped –
we drove them back. What was it made two hundred,
facing two thousand, so resolute for death?
Those Tuhoe, mad for battle, put us here.
Rewi kept us. ‘Ka whawhai tonu ake!’
Chewing raw kumara, licking dew from grass,
counting bullets – and then, by daylight, the breakout!
Orakau seemed to hold its breath as we came,
not running, one body, women at the centre,
warriors at the front. My heart thumped in my throat.
Eyes shut among the peach trees I see them again,
their bayonets ready. Only Death could stop me.
He was busy with my friends – I got away.
The Pakeha cursed – and praised us. Was it worth it?
Is life worth it, e hoa? Ake! Ake!