Adapting

previously published in Whetu Moana (Auckland University Press, 2003)

Uncle! Wear a jersey the wind will ice your back

and strip your grey hair from your balding head

Uncle! Where's your socks

your jandals will slip your feet wet

Uncle! Drink this coffee

to warm your best in strength

Uncle! Try these trackpants

your lavalava will blow you down

Uncle! Where's your shoes

your size is nevermind

Uncle! Here's your money

don't give it to the church

Uncle! Stop phoning Samoa

the bill will reach the sky

Uncle! Don't plant those taro leaves

the flowers are for the mind

Uncle! Why do you sit there in the corner

night and day

Uncle! Where's your passport

NOW you've overstayed.

 

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A measure of Manukau

Bred on the banks
- south
of the Manukau Heads
just above
- the rim
of the Bombay Hills,
I've eaten the smell
of the Otara fleamarket that
reeks of fresh fruit and fried fat
that blocks the arteries and veins
of Pasifika youth
from old age.
I've tasted soggy chips
on a foul London winter
and craved
for my mothers pork buns and 'sapasui'
for Sunday lunches after church
when we would gather
at the Otara homestead
telling the same stories on formica chairs
of life and pressure
on the end of
Dad's freezing workers wages.
Not even New York's rustle and glitz
could fade
my yearning for Manukau Pacific
for faces browned and profound
like mine, and high
on the sounds of Ardijah's
"time makes the wine"
I hum into the Manukau face of
creative spirit.

 

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