Ti
Akaroa Heads

Cordyline on a windswept point    stark
each frond stabbing
sharp as a taiaha’s  blade
defying the elements
facing down the ocean – that vast expanse
conquered first by Kiwa
the far voyaging     salt encrusted
sculpted by endless distance
always looking    ever longing for land
lying over the next line of horizon –
the darker smudge of blue
lifting to green above the deep swell
the first sighting    eyes shaded
of that solitary tree piercing sky
above a coastal headland    marking
the moment of transition
the place between.

(c) Helen Lowe

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First Published in Blackmail Press, “Crossed Cultures” Special Edition, 18 April 2008
Re-published, Crest to Crest: Impressions of Canterbury Prose & Poetry, Ed. Karen Zelas, Wily Publications, 2009

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Notes:

i) Ti Kouka—the Maori name for the NZ ‘cabbage tree’; scientific name Cordyline Australis
ii) Taiaha—a Maori stabbing spear, used now in ceremonies of greeting and challenge
iii) The Maori name for the Pacific ocean is Te Moananui a Kiwa, ‘the great ocean of Kiwa’, a mythic voyager

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I will be featuring poems that respond to works of art over the next while—not necessarily exclusively every week but as they come to hand, and thought I would start with one of my own: Ti, which was written in response to a print by Diana Adams, a New Zealand landscape painter. The print was given to me as a gift in 2004.

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