Jackets hide no scars

Tu Tangata, Issue 1, 1 August 1981, Page 35

Jackets hide no scars

By Haare Williams

They bear patches on their jackets hiding scars and wounds sprouting their own accord of direction and order

How do we prosecute those already grieved And how do we fine those lost in the streets of no direction

How do we heal those slashed in the flesh when they are slashed in spirit

To a fish in the sea To a bird in the sky To a deer in the forest a man in their domain is an intruder and a vagrant

How do we remove the chains that bound flight linked in outrage And what happens when we stumble into the chains of the real leaders up front when thirst and hunger choke the life of courtesy Where is the sure direction when brother is exiled from brother and whanau

Gone is the steady roar of the sea The echoes of the hills The voices of elders invoking the ancestors and rebuking the young The tracks that cling to the hillside From whence barefooted they walked and rode away on their bikes

Gone The physician who healed from within with his remedy of trust and understanding of aroha has gone

Their jackets hide scars no more