Three Poems by Dinah Moengarangi Rawiri Taheke They carried her to Taupiri Amid the sighing of the green ferns And the sound of the Kotuku Winging its way to the sun. Go then with the Kotuku Mother of my Mother Listen not to our weeping Let it carry you in pride For even Mother Papa sobs beneath our feet For you, Who have known her … And loved … She was very old Mother of my Mother Quiet, firm, and sure The moko on her face Proclaiming her right and her birth To all those who could read I am glad that she died now, Before the quietness withered, The resolve shook And the surety trembled. ‘Ah Ruru, brown one, I sit here, among the pillars Of the temple of Tane And hear you call softly in the darkness. I do understand, brown one.’ With her passing Has passed the lands of my ancestors And the old proud age of my people. I am glad that she died now Before she too was engulfed by the storm of a later tide, Before she too was shattered, By the tumultous tide of a new, and paler, sea.