Humming

This Friday’s poem is Humming by Hone Tuwhare from his collection Oooooo…..!!!  published by Steele Roberts.

 

I’ll leave it to you to find – or not – a message for Waitangi Day in it.

 

Humming

 

It is a house to be constructed with care

      for it has no confining walls

     thus permitting expansion: vertical

 

    growth is not inhibited for there is no limit to the height of the ceiling

    stretching to heaven. This house

    can endure given a chance, that’s

    for sure  … H m m m m

 

But since it is of earth its foundations may be

     built of sand: and because there are

    no confining walls this fragile house

    of love may be seen as layers of light

   and colour – a feeling tone – warm, purple

   orange grey hot and cold with lots of blue

   and yellow to make it green – green

   was predicatble … H m m m m

 

Fleshed out though, this house of love isn’t

     ageless, but ages old. It has form; contour.

     It has presence; a brilliant arc uniting

    heaven and hell; love-thoughts in pursuit of

    a physical expression – a noisy, gloppy

    proclamation –

 

                 Aha   Aha – Aha – Aha   Aha

 

    … and horses, huffing and pounding into

     the straight, riders snarling, cruel whips

     flailing – the anguish of stretched leather

     reeking sweetly of sweat … And reason? Ahh.

 

    Reason is a hunchback of irrelevance backing

    quietly out the door.

 

But where are the flowers – the select flowers

      of endearment, soul-food to dazzle the heart?

 

    O, they’re here, all right: there, there

    and THERE … H m m m

 

             – Hone Tuwhare –