A Matariki Poem by Dietrich Soakai
“Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua” :
‘I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past’.
On our journey
One foot in front of the other
One foot in front of the other
On our journey
Slowly slowly
But time quickly passing
We can find ourselves
Looking over our Shoulder
And finding it
Hard to see,
Memories are Shrouded in a thick fog,
A hazy mix of
romantic notions and actual fact
Over our shoulder
Are good, really good memories
Filled with ones we've loved
And those of whom we've lost
A warming recollection
Grief, simply said, is love with no where to go
Devouring, consuming, dissonance
Sometimes pothole
sometimes manhole.
Things we thought wed never get out of,
Feelings so over whelming, we thought wed never get over
An undercurrent that needs an outlet
To release it to the ocean of time
Between us
From that to this
All of that is now a gentle glazing of vision
Shooting
A little smile
From a passer by
A friendly ghost
A shank stab of longing
now just a vague haunting
All that we've wrestled with is now
A slight limp in our gait.
For all that has past on
For all that we have moved on from
May we stay
On our journey
One foot in front of the other
One foot in front of the other
On our journey
Slowly slowly
But time quickly passing
Retell your story
like twilight shadows Stretching the truth
To try to cover all that needs to be said
All that needs to be said
So that feeling can be found,
Be picked up and held,
Dragged up to the surface
And gently gently
Kindly kindly
Hold it with no judgement
Because we don’t need chains of shame
Chains of guilt
Instead,
Look up to the nights sky
We should see it with matariki
Little eyes
Peering at it with safe distance
Matariki
An invitation to change season
To get up, one more time
To dare to move, dare to dream and believe
For what it’s worth,
This is all we got,
This is all we got,
So do’s or do nots
Stomach and tongue in knots
But we, somehow someway
Keep that funky funk like every single day
I’m at the preachers door
And my knees getting weak
Trumpets might blow but we gone be alright
We gone be alright
We gone be alright
You’re gone be alright
In the end it’ll be alright
So when you’re ready
Up ya get
Never forgetting
One foot
In front of the other
One foot in front of the other
On your journey
“Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua” :
‘I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past’.