King Country – Eva Poland

King Country
 
Deep within the King Country
Papatūānuku’s skin is an ocean of copper and gold
egg yolk and fish fingers –
Pollock on steroids in summer.
Shards of our mother’s broken bones break
like waves from the surface of the earth
forming barricades on which Tāne’s warriors stand
row upon row
they pull strength up through their roots
(as I pull my strength up through you)
their protective arms merging together like a great taniwha
or a tendril of smoke.
Deep within the King Country
we who are many become one again beneath Rangi’s chest
and sink back, children once more
into the soil from which we were moulded.
 

Eva Poland
Year 13
Wellington High School