Puanga

The children are making the river.
They have sand and pumice. They have ferns.

A teacher unrolls masking tape,
presses a map to the wall.

There are birds that sing when squeezed.
Wild-eyed, a girl clings to a tūī.

There are little whare, into which
the birds can be inserted.

A boy carries the kōkako
around all morning.

*

Over the radio, silence.
Then the swish of piupiu,

tread of feet,
pat of plastic poi.

Stillness. Silence moves
across the airwaves.

A drum, a guitar strum
breaks it. Girls open their throats.

The sound of lungs filling.
The loosing of tongues.

*

This is Puanga, or Rigel.
The laser pointer circles the gleam.

Children’s heads silhouetted
by the projector,
continually in movement.

This is Matariki, or the Pleiades,
or Subaru.

But in Whanganui,
Puanga is the star
we look for in the new year.

*

The children have made star biscuits.
They have harakeke. They are weaving stars.

Milo in the star-cave,
telescopes searching cloud.

They have playdough the colour
of night sky, filled with glitter.

Dressing gowns, gumboots, woolly hats.
A brazier in the sandpit.

The smell of damp air.
The smell of burning sugar.

*

It is a time for planting.
A child chooses a pine

with blue-grey needles.
It will bear nuts in forty years.

A time for gathering.
Pink yam fingers poke from the soil.

A time to prepare new ground.
Bared black of loam.

Where can we plant this tree?
Where will it cast its shadow?

*

From here, Puanga.
From here, Rigel.

In the sky a hunter stands
on his hands,
both feet upwards.

In a tank a real eel.
The silver of īnanga.

The stones are lined up,
the birds are positioned.
The children are making the river.

Airini Beautrais
from Flow: Whanganui River Poems, THWUP (VUP), 2017

 Airini Beautrais lives in Whanganui. She is the author of four poetry collections, a book of short stories, and an essay collection. Her new poetry collection, Salt Quilt, is forthcoming from Te Herenga Waka University Press in July 2026.

The Poetry Shelf Breathing Room: A place to enter and pause and take a long slow breath and then another, as you absorb the beauty movement joy stillness wonder movement of a poem.