Palm Sunday, Rarotonga

Te Ao Hou, March 1969, Page 24

Palm Sunday, Rarotonga Honda-fresh in the morning coolness Of this house of God I sit Bathed in the brown flow Of a language I partly comprehend. The single voice is a servant. Whose words wash my heart. Lapped in the lilting syncopation Of an a cappella congregation I hear (Schola Cantorum trained) Splendid, remote, barbaric, Kodaly in the women's fifths, Below them, in thirds, Charles Ives In the men's exultant throats. My neighbour shares his hymnbook And we praise God in Maori Sudden, I remember my friend, Now gone to rejoin his ancestors: Cramped in the small studio One proud papaa In a Maori church choir. The sermon begins in John. I remember our Chinese priest: Service in Cantonese, epistola In Iban. I think of the oneness Of life in the longhouse And Sarawak calls me again. And then I think that the island Itself is a great longhouse: One roof, and many families. The sermon knits to a close; The many strands of faith Gather in the final hymn. The blessing, a blush of peace, A beating of white tern's wings, Falls, amene, on our hearts. Martin Wilson