Ahi kā
At the top of the road
there is wind,
railways crossing at the corner,
of an old wooden prefab where
wine gums and popsicles, and
our feet in jandals fill
the one room dairy that is decades gone
toward the motorway
past the tree where Uncle hung himself,
is the highway
the marae-way.
Eels peg the line, and
Chip-dog is lazy barking.
Over the split verandah, you cross
the musty lounge, dark with the 70’s
squeeze down the hall past rooms so
clumsy you can smell the cob
out the window, into the land
blazing beneath this ancient copper;
we scrub on the washboard
of someone else’s clothes,
the broken down wringer where
this Auntie’s house is on the left,
that Auntie’s house is on the right;
the whole damn road is a gauntlet of aunties.
©Anahera Gildea
Anahera Gildea (Ngāti Raukawa-ki-te-tonga) has worked extensively as a visual and performing artist, a writer, and a teacher. She has had her poems and short stories published in multiple journals and anthologies, and her first book ‘Poroporoaki to the Lord My God: Weaving the Via Dolorosa’ was published by Seraph Press in 2016. She holds a BA in Art Theory, Graduate Diplomas in Psychology, Teaching, and Performing Arts, and a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from Victoria University.
NZ Poetry Shelf 