a pastel drawing by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Kahukura
by Thomas Davis
Two long days of writing a constitution
And making the structure of an accreditation authority
And then the long drive from Porirua to Hamilton
Through the Ruahine range of mountains
And the mountains and hills of the Wanganui River.
All through the day we passed from sunshine to storm,
Rain and even hail blowing out of clouds
That crept white and shifting down mountains
Where rows of pines waited for cover
Before they marched in maneuvers
Designed to confuse the eyes of hawks and human beings.
We traveled so long we forgot about the white manes of seahorses
That galloped in heavy winds beneath the ocean
Into the unmoving rocks of shore.
Rainbows walked ahead of us for hours,
Sometimes one, bright in its arching,
And at other times two, the dark one larger than the bright one
And always trailing behind,
A mother watching out for her adventuresome child
That once darted so close to us it made the wet branches of a pine tree shine.
We did not stop at the proceedings at Moutoa Gardens
Where Maori camped in bright colored tents,
Occupying ground in order to assert sovereignty
As old as the naming of the shaky isles by the Aborigine,
But passed gorges plunging to river waters
Below greenness that covered hills and mountains
And fell into valleys blessed by singing birds
That kept trying to tell of the rainbow’s walking glory.
At the Lady of the Waterfall, in the rain,
Mana Forbes blessed the stones we had taken to ourselves
After we climbed down steps to the waterfall
In the country of kings.
Note: After the World Indigenous Higher Education Consortium was founded in Canada, the next step was to begin writing a Constitution, which happened at Kahukura in New Zealand. This poem was written there.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
Drought
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
Had I not gone the extra mile
this morning,
I would have missed
the unexpected
deep purple flowers
of the Desert Lupine—
shockingly beautiful–
with undertones of crimson
among the death-like color
of the gray rabbit brush.
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
At the Founding of the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC) on the Stoney Reserve in Canada, 8/7/02
Rock mountains thrown down out of sky
Into the green girdle of pine and spruce
That fall into white trunks of aspen
Fluttering with leaves in the valley
Beside the sometimes molten turquoise of a river.
In this place,
Beside a lake alive with small waves,
Below mountains,
The tall aborigine puts his lips to digeridoo,
Brown hollow log,
And blows out earthsongs
Into humming bones,
His mother’s voice soaring above deepness,
Voices of cultures
From mountains, hills, valleys, ocean shores, forests, swamps, lakes, steppes, deserts
Spilling languages alive
Into the ecology of peoples,
The digeridoo inside heartsong
Of generations backward and forward
From this time, this place.
Words flowed around tables.
Voices became people
As songs sought the spirit
Of prayer, of humility, of hope.
Words and people
Circled inside each other
As agreement approached, a field mouse
Twitching at wind’s breath on blades of grasses.
And then unity,
Past, present, future bound
Into voices and words,
The language of peoples
Become a single language.
Inside the world of cars, airplanes, computers,
People original to places
Feel their deserts, steppes, lakes, swamps, forests, ocean shores, valleys, hills, mountains
Rise from the low color of digeridoo’s sounds.
In education,
In belonging,
In wisdom
Is the sustainability of the world.
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
The Begging Gangs of Pakistan
by Ethel Mortenson Davis
A young man tells
of his daughter
kidnapped by gangs:
“They kidnap children
and cut off their arms or feet,
sometimes a leg,
and set them
in front of mosques so people
will drop coins in front of them.
“They place them throughout the city
and kidnap many children.
“Our daughter had escaped.
They pulled all her hair out.
She is always terrified.
“I used to think the Devil
was outside of us….
but we are the Devil.
“Humankind is the Devil.”
Filed under Ethel Mortenson Davis, Poetry
The First Meeting of the Tribal College Presidents– Maori College Administrators, Faculty, and Students in Hawaii
Note: This starts a new series of poems, The Tribal College poems, that tell about the tribal college movement in the United States and the formation of the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium (WINHEC). In many ways these poems have historical importance, describing events from some of the most important higher education movements that happened in the latter part of the 20th century.
The Maori came singing in rows,
Language as musical as colors of Hawaiian flowers,
Swaying rhythms weaving through island heat,
Capturing in movement wave song of ocean.
The tribal college people came, led by a hand drum,
Feet moving to the drum’s rhythm,
Spirit inculcated into the history of this moment
Away from the tribal homeland,
Maori homeland,
In the islands of Hawaii.
The singing and drumming met
In a swirl of traditional dress
And words from scores of cultures.
The meeting created waves and tides
And a singing beyond the singing of any one people
Or group of people,
And the waves and tides swept outward
From rocky shores of Hilo, past the reef
Into the ocean of the world
As a growing began
That sent echoes rumbling
Into years and decades in the process of borning.
Hi Yah Hi!
Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis
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