Birthday card

My mokopuna made me a birthday card written in cloud-white
pen on bright blue card, the words so faint I need to read them
up close in order to take in each word and letter.
I have stuck the card to our fridge with a magnet I’ve taken out
from my Te Reo kete— a small tama who stands hands on hips
with pounamu tiki, toki tucked into his waist band, tāmoko
on his right arm. My grandson used GRANDMA as an acronym,
with Marvellous for the M, writing it as, ‘MARVYOULIS’.
He’s still learning the in’s and out’s of English—Saxon,
Latin, Old Norse mashed together like parsnips and carrots.
I’m learning too. Te Reo. Slowly. Learning that it is te takata,
it is te whenua. It is te hau raki, te hau taitoka, te hau rāwhiti,
te hau-ā-uru. The wind from the north, the wind from the south,
the wind from the east, the wind from the west. It is rain.
Tā te manawa. It is replacing ‘ng’ with a ‘k’. Mauka for maunga.
It is Kāi Tahu dialect. It is learning to feel sound rise
from your puku, your wairua, ready for breathing out
through soft lips as line, sentence, song, chant; with vowels
that need room to lie together, to blend, to marry. It is consonants
for my tongue to tap and roll like thunder, or manu
on the brink of flight. My mokopuna made me a birthday card
written in cloud-white pen on bright blue card, the words so faint
I need to read them up close in order to take in each word and letter.

Kay McKenzie Cooke

Kay McKenzie Cooke (Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Kāi Tahu) lives in Ōtepoti Dunedin between the harbour and the sea. Her new poetry collection titled, My favourite set of lights, is being published by The Cuba Press and is due out in November.