Milly
Magazine
ngaa waana
Three poems By Vaughan Rapatahana
ki te roto ahau.
e kite ana ahau
ngaa waana.
kei te ikiiki raatou i ahau.
ko he tangata kee ahau.
e tere ana raatou
enanga nei he merekara.
e puumau whakahirahira
ana raatou.
ko te maaoriori raatou.
e kite ana ahau
ngaa waana.
ko he whakakitenga.
ko he tangata
pai kee atu ahau.
[Translation from te reo Maaori to English]
the swans
I am at the lake.
I observe
the swans.
they transport me.
I am another man.
they glide
as if a miracle.
they exist
sublime.
they are serene.
I observe
the swans.
it is epiphany.
I am
a better man.]
kei muri Ōtautahi
[after Christchurch]
after Christchurch,
scurried the disclaimers
‘this is not new zealand.’
but it is.
it has been for far too long now.
we own, all by ourselves
- the highest rate of intimate partner violence in the developed world+.
- the highest death rate for teenagers in the developed world#.
- the highest youth suicide rate in the developed world*.
- the third highest rate of child maltreatment in the entire world*.
you respond with a
‘terrible yes, but surely not as heinous as
the massacre at the mosque.’
whakarongo!
kei mua Ootautahi
he maha ngaa parekura
Ngatapa!
Handley’s Woolshed!
Rangiaowhia!
all victims with the same skin colour,
all murdered by white men with guns.
ko Aotearoa teenei
moo he taima tino roa.
rawa roa.
[Translation from te reo Maaori to English]
whakarongo!
kei mua Ootautahi
he maha ngaa parekura.
listen!
before Christchurch
there were many massacres
ko Aotearoa teenei
moo he taima tino roa.
rawa roa.
this has been Aotearoa
for a very long time,
too long.]
[+Read New Zealand Herald 27/03/2017.
#Listen to Newstalk ZB 26/02/2019.
*See Shockingly Bad New Zealand Statistics online.]
coloratura
Vaughan Rapatahana (Te Aatiawa) commutes between homes in Hong Kong, Philippines and Aotearoa New Zealand. He is widely published across several genre in both his main languages, te reo Maaori and English and his work has been translated into Bahasa Malaysia, Italian, French, Mandarin.
be kind to your younger self.
they did not know.
be forgiving
of their foolish acts.
the ideals
deliquesced,
the hopes
submerged
by the seiche
of cynicism.
the bonds
busted,
the alliances
seized gelid
in the chill
of decennaries.
love
who you once were.
be generous
to that former self,
in a coloratura
to that unversed mimic
no longer gazing back
from the mirror.