LEGENDS OF THE PĀKEHĀ

To the great serene Emperors of the North,

your governor in the Antipodes

bids you hail

for this is what you must understand,

you who are native in your own dominions

where the down has long settled in the conqueror’s cushions.

Here every day is Saturnalia.

Always in the south

we live with the stigma, O divine Emperors,

of our original sin.

Always there is the indigenous

as once we were elsewhere

until the War in Heaven

and the angels fell down the rabbit hole.

Always there is the native

standing on the shore

like trees in a painting,

watching the horizon

where the future apocalypse develops

slowly like a Polaroid,

unfolding its petals,

blossoming into a great white

delicate origami bird.

That was our ship O Princes.

Always the native –

even in Eden, before at Eve’s bequest

Adam invented genocide as dowry.

Enclosed, your tribute.

Ave atque vale.