The Day it was Written

Photo credit Raymond Sagapolutele.

Rangituhia Hollis

Tena koutou katoa,
Ko Tāwhiti nui a Pāoa te maunga.
Ko Waikawa te awa.
Ko Horouta te waka.
Ko Taharora te marae.
Ko Te Whānau a Rākairoa te hapū.
Ko au te uri a Ngāti Porou, Kahungunu ki Te Wairoa,
Te Whakatōhea, ko Te Whānau a Apanui hoki, I te taha a tōku Pāpā.
Nō Kaipara ōku tipuna hoki, ko Ngāti Whātua o Kaipara rātou,
ko te whānau a Maaka Rapana ōku tipuna, i te taha o tōku Pāpā.
I te taha o tōku Māmā: Nō Airani, nō Kotarana, nō Ītaria ōku tipuna.
Ko Annabelle Perera tōku hoa rangatira.
Ko Tū Tonu tōku tama.
Ko Rangituhia Hollis tōku ingoa.
Kei Manurewa e noho ana.
Nā reira, ka nui te mihi mahana ki a koe, ki a koutou katoa.

The Day it was Written

Developing a Māori Spaceship (Work in Progress)

The Day it was Written (excerpts, of a work in progress)

Writing Excerpts

Notes on Colour Excerpt

No stars tonight. Just an ominous light, like what you might see with the dawn. Subtle, red-filled, backlit, rear-projected.

Something must be going to emerge.

Last night on earth, and the cloud cover seems like it’s spread from a smoke machine with a wide gate release. But the sky is still, it’s late and nothing’s moving.

The longer I look, the deeper the colour gets. I went inside and came back out, and I look up again and only see blue till I sit awhile. Took a photo from the step. Seeing the wrinkles on my hands and the light from my phone tinting the tips of my eyelashes.

The camera can’t capture it, but eyes see panorama as well as the macro. Red, white and grey. Whiter, softer plumes of clouds look like they’re drifting from smokestacks.

Colour can’t capture it all either, this street is sound. The sky as a chamber. With the ever-nearing urgency of a passing car, I hear your foot on the gas and your need to get home.

When I look for a long time, I see things in raster. I see this life is made out of pixels that when taken in make for an apricot sky.

Light that fills the deep part of your eyes. Soft, and then a bloom. With a black-toned storm hitting the edges.

Read More Notes on Colour

The Day it was Written Excerpt

‘That there’s the house,’ my cousin pointed out, ‘from Ngati…it’s where they filmed that sick boy, and where they sung for him and where he died.’

I could barely see the house as waves washed my shoulders and my head bobbed in the water like a crayfish buoy trying to remain afloat.

‘Iri-Te-Kura too,’ he continued, ‘it was in the film.’

Ah, Iri-te-Kura, I knew better. That was a place of laughter and food, of aunties with lollies and cousins to play with. And although it was sort of hidden, obscured by rows of pines, I knew where it was ‘cause I had good memories on the marae.

‘And your oldman’s house, eh.’ He pointed again, ‘It’s up on that other hill.’

‘Yea’ yeah, and all of them grew up there in that small house?’

‘Yep, all around here.’ Then a big wave came closer; we readied to catch it and were back to swimming.

Across the Face of the Moon Excerpt

I look up to the moon, and I say inside myself “I used to be afraid of you”.

Now I see your beauty up there. I feel your light carry my eyes across the stars.

You’re directing me home.

And I know that beauty exists, if not here then somewhere. I see a tinge of black across the curve of your brow. You’re not full tonight. I see you’re in profile, turned, looking like you’re talking to a neighbouring star.

“These words have collapsed the distance between us.”

I hear you calling, One soft karanga call landing on empty air.

“From here, I watch the earth. Do you watch it too? Or do you have better worlds to gaze on with wonder?”

Maybe in a few million years I’ll be still here to hear that star answer back.

Somewhere still standing with you. You still there above and roaring.

Well above, at the apex of all things.

Seeing our flaming sun dim above a dying world.

I hope the answer will be “Yes, yes I do”.

HowwouldyoufeelaboutmewritingsomethingaboutToiTūToiOraforCircuit? Excerpt

There are always notions of self-interest in every group setting, which I feel are especially necessary in a communal one.

Structures that are set up, need to allow for the capacity for difference in order to shape the form of the communal. And offer ways of speaking through differences, in order to make responses to the past and present, and anticipate the future. Without this, the social will simply replicate itself—as well as pre-existing hierarchies—and suppress itself into redundancy.

I've been thinking about this in order to consider how the world may be reframing right now. Maybe it's happening around us, maybe we're a part of it at least locally.

I'm wondering about our agency right now. & how the world may change or not, in relation to the "plague" and "dis-ease" that is upon us.

We are closer now to our own spaces of sovereignty than ever before. The areas that are ours, are like the borders of our own domain. We are face to face with how we live. In a broader sense we are our own Iwi from house to house.

Essential public spaces are not contested in the same way as they once were by commercial interests, they are now about providing neutrality and equanimity in the face of a potentially drastic change in the cognisance of humanity.

Things may change, they may need to, or they may not. I think now is the time to put this type of local thinking that we are experiencing in our "own" spaces forward in order to consider what we value. So that we can, as a grouping of cultures, negotiate how society may be reframed.