I We walk the dark beach at Raumati. There’s Orion, belt-loose low-rider— hanging nonchalance in the western sky. Rather than raising a club (Betelgeuse in one bicep and a faint string of suns in the other that could be the skin of a lion or a shield) he’s a glistening child about to pop a manu off Tuteremoana into Te-Rau-o-te-Rangi channel. Imagine Gaia’s rage when Orion dared to say he would kill every animal on Earth. My child talks about the deep universe more than our planet— how his belt might’ve exploded already ‘cos light is so slow to arrive from the past and we’re always running late into the future, eh Mum. We were always going to be too late. II For some iwi, the three stars are Tautoro, bird perch with a berry star— bird snare for a chiefly kai— bright Rigel—Puanga leading in the new year with glimmering Matariki. In Samoa, the stars form Amonga: a balance-pole, a carrying-pole. III The Monday in May last year when the United Nations declared unprecedented—accelerating—one million plants and animals threatened with extinction, Morning Report played the imagined scream of Pouakai Haast’s Eagle—Aiiiii was here! Tuesday to Friday, they aired Moa Finsch’s duck, New Zealand Goose, Huia— growling, booming, karking, wailing I was here I was here I was here I was here Where are you where are you huia uia uia! IV Today, the independent economist before the canned bird call before the trill of the 7am news is wondering if the money graphs will form a V, U or L. I dream of O, our lifebelt, Kate’s Doughnut. The Earth is howling for safe, just circles, and how about Teina’s Ohanga Iho Nui? V We walk home, pushing the air aside like it’s the super organza of the galaxy shushing us. My glistening child. How shall we make the world whole in time when a vested few crave the whole Earth?
Kate Rowarth’s Doughnut Economics
Teina Boasa-Dean’s Ohanga Iho Nui
