Rangi Faith was born in Timaru, New Zealand, in 1949, and is of Kāi Tahu descent. He lives in Rangiora. His publications include Unfinished Crossword (Hazard Press, 1990), Rivers Without Eels (Huia Publishers, 2001) and Conversation with a Moahunter (Steele Roberts, 2005). He edited Dangerous Landscapes (Longman Paul, 1994), a collection of poetry for New Zealand schools. He also wrote Technology of the Maori (Curriculum Concepts, 2004), a resource book for teachers.
Before light, waking in the hut
on the edge of the cliffs
at the mouth of the Ōrari River,
looking through a steamy window
at the empty field behind –
the sea falls on the beach,
& the gulls speak for those awake;
I listen to my grandparents rise,
the hut door swinging & boots on the porch;
to the sounds as paper is crushed
and driftwood placed into the stove,
the match strike & the metal door closing;
the smell of smoke
in the cold morning air
we clamber into a rocking boat,
the oars sliding into the rowlocks,
the rubber of thigh waders,
I watch the water breaking
as the blades dip & pull,
dip & pull;
the salt bite of the air,
beachwood drifts –
pile upon tangled pile,
in the distance the picket fence
of fishermen stand in the Ōrari surf
as black dots of birds fall into the sea.
They came in cocky
with only one man for the seeing,
rowing with their backs
to a stranger’s land,
& looking back
at a disappearing wake
& a ship growing smaller;
it was a quick & noisy transit
of the space
between a ship & its land;
& then they beached
like professionals –
planting the flag
& setting up guards
with feet rammed into the sand
& faces already paling
under their hats …
This jack salmon has been in a hungry river
long enough for the scales to float free:
untouched, deep, as rigid as a board
it lies on an angle to the river’s flow,
the hooked jaw open,
& the eye a white marble.
There are months, they say, when the eels dig
deep into the mud, months without an ‘r’,
May and June, July and August,
the winter months that give the river half a chance –
might live until the next spring.
The gallery is silent.
In the darkness
two hīnaki float in mid-air
suspended on nylon gut;
the air streams past
and filters through the flax;
in the shadows, necks and eyes
slowly rise to the scent
of a fresh current.
Against the far white wall of the gallery
a jet-black eel in a crystal-clean aquarium
has given up on the light and movement
and has retreated hard into the curl
of the eel pot’s lip,
the bubbles from the pump bursting
on its skin;
in the rivers the winter is biting,
fellow eels are dreaming in the mud.
With the set net cut,
the river flows free,
an elder will sleep easier tonight.
I walk the beach
with a skull in my fist;
my thumb press,
caress is silk soft
across bone;
when I return
to the cottage,
I will empty
the cranial contents –
grains of sand –
one
by
one
to the grass,
and watch the flow
of silence
and falling air.
a.k.a. ‘The Last Moa’
Just one trout – that’s all I asked.
The Ōpihi wasn’t prepared to oblige,
so it was upriver again –
following an old trail in the mist,
past the hanging cliffs where my father & I
culled out the river shags years ago.
Up the valley to a lake bed so dry
old trees, old foundations were coming up
like springs through the stuffing.
& after an afternoon downstream,
I gave up on the river & lunched
below the limestone drawings.
Hoons in a Holden were racing
up & down Raincliff Road.
gave way to the thunder of feet,
& beside me a moahunter
fresh from the hunt, panting.
How did it go? I asked.
Just one, he said.
Just one.