October in your māra

A month today, how is that possible?

I wash your floors        clean your loo         then sit in your māra

the one we replanted         yesterday         thinking of you         soon I will

be gone from here         with only memories         of you in this place

How can I go without knowing where you are, other than in the box of ashes I carry?

I have no compass          for this path           but oceans of tears

and landscapes of kōhatu         sit in my puku         a dreadful dead weight

Te Reo Māori words: māra: garden, kohatu: stones, puku: stomach

Iona Winter

Iona Winter (Waitaha) is the author of three collections of poetry and hybrid fiction: Gaps in the Light (2021), Te Hau Kāika (2019), then the wind came (2018). Widely published and anthologised internationally, her work has been performed solo and in collaboration with multimedia artists. Iona is currently working on a creative non-fiction project addressing the complexities of being suicide bereaved, and lives in Dunedin, New Zealand.

3 Responses

  1. Yeah no compass for this journey eh, and we all have different maps in our hearts. Thank you for sharing this beautiful, heart wrenching poem Iona. I tangi with you xx

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