Te Huarahi O Rongo Marae Roa

Jaime Mathis

Humanity has a common language. We all walk, in our minds, on our feet, and we all have sacred trails that we honor. Whether it is a path through nature or the morning race on Wall Street, we all carry a cadence that moves our bodies and souls. We all have stories that propel our lives and give them meaning. I want to build a library of these treks and take one step closer to seeing our sameness.

“There were people living on New Zealand thousands of years before the Maori set foot here.” Barry says, glancing at his partner Cushla. Her eyes remain on his face. She nods. Barry continues. “They arrived in their wakas and had faces like the rainbow.” His white hair is a cloud around bespectacled eyes. “Some,” he adjusts his right hand around a carved walking stick, “Were white skinned, some brown, others black, red, or yellow. Each person had a specific skill; navigating, building, steering, paddling.” His round cheeks inflate and settle, belly balancing over his waistline. I cradle my tea cup and scoot in closer. “They came seeking the stone of healing and peace to carry into the world. In the mouth of the Arahura River, the Waitaha discovered pounamou. They imbued it with love and strength on its journey into the world. The trail was guarded and maintained by women.”

I am too pragmatic to believe in magic. I spend too much time chasing it to convince others I’m beyond it. My guts shiver, legs shaking beneath the table. Te Huarahi O Rongo Marae Roa, The Way of the Peacemaker leaps across time and burrows into my lap. The words are strange as he speaks, so rich I almost need a pinch of salt to calm myself.

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Choose Love

It’s impossible when looking around

not to imagine some prior tragedy,

a figure on a cross, tears spouting from his nipples.

And what’s this supposed to be a drawing of?

A snow-white angel? A ballerina under sedation?

Given a choice, I would choose you,

standing amid strangers in a busy street

and grinning up at the face in a cloud,

and every day would contain the secret

to the perfect something – that if less is more,

then nothing must be even more.

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Two Visions of O’Keeffe

by

Christina Murphy

The snow is a flute of multiple blessings,

a pale blazing of crystal light that renews

the loving heart and gathers up the world

into the exultations of a white-cold sky

from circumference to core

Sea winds flower in the twilight

and rocks sing softly to waterfalls;

and everywhere, always,

there is the desire to know

what light there is within the light

that splits darkness into a silver moon

lifting, like an eagle, into a peaceful sky

Christina Murphy’s poetry is an exploration of consciousness as subjective experience, and her poems appear in a wide range of journals and anthologies, including, PANK, Dali’s Lovechild, and Hermeneutic Chaos Literary Journal, and in the anthologies From the Roaring Deep: A Devotional in Honor of Poseidon and the Spirits of the Sea, The Great Gatsby Anthology, and Remaking Moby-Dick. Her work has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and for the Best of the Net Anthology.