Tag Archives: Maori

August 25, 2013 · 8:43 am

Kahukura

by Thomas Davis from World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium Poems, Navajo Technical University Press

Two long days of writing a constitution
And making the structure of an accreditation authority,
Then the long drive from Porirua to Hamilton
Through the Ruahine range of mountains
And mountains and hills of the Wanganui River.
All day we passed from sunshine to storm,
Rain and even hail blowing out of clouds
That crept white and shifting down green mountains
Where rows of pines waited for cover
Before they marched in maneuvers
Designed to confuse eyes of hawks and human beings.

We traveled so long we forgot about white manes of seahorses
That galloped in heavy winds beneath ocean
Into unmoving rocks of shore.

For hours rainbows walked ahead of us,
Sometimes one, bright in its arching,
And at other times two, 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 Aborigine,
But passed gorges plunging to river waters
Before 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 rain,
Mana Forbes blessed stones we had taken to ourselves
After we had climbed down steps to the waterfall
In the country of kings.

4 Comments

Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis

Tagged as aborigine, constitution, Kahukura, Mana Forbes, Maori, New Zealand, poems, World Indigenous Higher Education Consortium

August 14, 2013 · 8:50 am

The Journey to Advancing the Foundations of WINHEC Meeting in Todd Park, New Zealand 11-9-02

by Thomas Davis

We stood beneath graves of kings,
And Mana, silver haired, large in life, words, and laughter,
Stood with a staff made in Sante Fe, New Mexico
And spoke as a New Zealand bird sang,
Voice liquid as wind.

Later we stood above Huka Falls and the Waikato River
And saw colors of flowing water change
From a blue dark, with movement toward stones,
To white and turquoise as water tumbled and raged
To escape closing-in stone,
And then into turquoise blending toward green
As white, with turquoise flecks,
Thundered/rushed/calmed into river again.

Then, later still, we passed Pihanga Mountain
As she quietly made trouble in morning air
Near to where she had caused a larger mountain to move,
Leaving a great gash in the earth.

Until, at last, around a bend,
Below mountains covered with green grass,
Breathing with ribs
Made by sheep grazing over time,
We came to the sea where waves sprayed
Over dark shore rocks,
Ending our journey,
Which began in Minnesota winter
And ended here, in the land of Maori,
Where music is breathing
And woodcarvings scrawl a people’s story
From a time of canoes and great forests
Into a time borning
A storm of pride and promise.

Note: Mana in the poem is Mana Forbes, a man who talks to the ancestors and was our guide when we went to New Zealand in order to help establish WINHEC. WINHEC just held their annual meeting at Navajo Technical University in Crownpoint, NM where the World Indigenous University (WINU) was formed. The story of an organization that was just a vision thrown around in Hawaii when the first poems of this series were written continues to grow.

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Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis

Tagged as Mana Forbes, Maori, Minnesota winter, New Zealand, Pihanga Mountain, poems, river, sea, Todd Park

July 31, 2013 · 6:48 am

Mana Forbes

I sing the song of Mana Forbes,
His laughter deep with sun-drenched days;
Inside his spirit swirling orbs
Of rainbows dance in bright display.

He drives through fields of endless green
And tries to mock his mocking songs,
But eagles swoop into his dreams
And metamorphose right and wrong

Into a joyous paen to the earth
From where he rises every morn
And feels the cycling birth/rebirth
Of time forever being found, reborn.

So, here’s to Mana voyager!
Canoeing over rivers, hills, and shores,
The clown whose prophecy can stir
Heart prayer, joy, and hawk-winged lore.

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Tagged as birth/rebirth, man who talks to ancestors, Mana Forbes, Maori, poems, quatrains, voyager, waka

July 11, 2013 · 6:17 am

Makwa Fits You Good

by Thomas Davis

To Trevor Moeke

Makwa fits you good:

He wanders around the grounds,
Rolling like a meadow rolls,
Growling here and there
With the song of who he is
And greeting morning and evening skies
With the power of his presence.

His earth spirit
Speaks languages
Gathered from earth, wind, water, sky.

Walking in sunshine
Between startling whiteness
Of tepees that point poles
Toward a startling blue sky,
He smiles with white teeth
And laughs with a deepness
That shakes aspen leaves
And sets them to dancing
Even though there is no wind.

Note: Trevor Moeke is a Maori leader who is the current Co-Chair of the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium (www.win-hec.org). Makwa, in Anishinabe, means bear. This poem was written on the Shoney Reserve in Canada immediately after the meeting that formed WINHEC.

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Tagged as bear, Canada, Makwa, Maori, poems, Shoney Reserve, Trevor Moeke, WINHEC, World Indigenous Higher Education Consortium

July 4, 2013 · 7:12 am

Brother William, Maori Singer

by Thomas Davis

Twelve hawks soar in a circle,
Each wheeling interlocking into the next.

They soar higher and higher,
Dark wings part of summer blue sky,
Growing smaller as they climb
Above valley grasses,
Pines, and fluttering aspen leaves
Covering sides of hills,
Rising into symphony
Of ever lighter blue distance,
Ever climbing mountains.

Then, in a splinter of light,
Bird wing flashes white.
The world changes
While sky, mountains, trees
Live inside their own sense of time.

On the stage, wooden, outside,
Before a crowd of brown faces,
Maori laughed and sang
A storm of life
And eyes dancing in faces.

In the midst of song and laughter,
A slim, aging man stood in front of the singers.
He spoke of birds wheeling high in the distance of sky.

Note: This happened on the Stoney Reserve in Canada on the day that the World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium was formed.

4 Comments

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Tagged as Canada, Maori, poems, splinter of light, Stoney Reserve, twelve hawks, William, World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium

June 27, 2013 · 6:48 am

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.

4 Comments

Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis

Tagged as constitution, Kahukura, Maori, New Zealand, poems, tribal college poems, WINHEC, World Indigenous Higher Education Consortium

June 15, 2013 · 6:49 am

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.

4 Comments

Filed under Poetry, Thomas Davis

Tagged as aborigine, Canada, digeridoo, earthsons, ecology of peoples, Maori, poems, Stoney Reserve, the tribal college poems

June 7, 2013 · 6:48 am

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!

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Tagged as Hawaii, higher education, Hilo, Maori, meeting, poems, tribal colleges, WINHEC, World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium