Puisi Perdamaian Perempuan dari New Zealand

To The Power Of

in mathematical terms
one thousand equals ten to the power of three

They say that men have wings, while women have only feet

When i think of those women when everyone else is exhausted, sleeping:

in terms of peeling back war
shucking its kernel
drying its seeds
spreading it on soil
and watering the plant to come
that will feed
a thousand

Have you ever seen a woman stand on the beach and wail, wail at the sea and sky?

picking up the paddle, wrapping it with calloused fingers
narrowing their eyes in concentration
measuring the distance, the trigonometry of waves and winds:

in terms of hands rising
purple fingers casting
ballot box voices jostling
to choose a new day

They say that men have wings, while women have only feet

in those quiet midnights I’ve seen them move the whole canoe
on the torque of the paddle’s guided drag, on the rhythm of the paddle’s backward cutting…

in terms of growing the child
back to innocent nights where silence soothes
like a cool gauze wrap
not a hessian rope tightening

Have you ever seen a woman stand on the beach and wail, wail at the sea and sky?

And when i think of these women
it’s only logical that there must have been women back there

in terms of taking childhood
strewn like lost luggage
along broken roads of war
and folding them gently back
home

They say that men have wings, while women have only feet

back in the moko we wear under our skin
back in the lists that sit rolled up in someone else’s kitchen drawer
back in the tukutuku and carvings that probably adorn
the sacred houses of my family
that i’ve never visited:

in terms of hearing exiled songs
unbinding the chords from throats
so they might chant again of freedom

Have you ever seen a woman stand on the beach and wail, wail at the sea and sky?

there must have been women back there
who held in their wombs the seeds and kernels of the women here.

one thousand equals
a paper trail marched to the power of
a thousand women
signing their way to

rangimarie
filemu
peace

Yes there must be some navigating women back there:

navigating grandmothers
navigating me.



By Selina Tusitala Marsh, Teresia Teaiwa, Alice Te Punga Somerville