7
M a t a r i k i
agent of God on the darkest year of night in bare feet
crouched beside me this tin roof protecting us from the wind
we share a new year with your six crazy sisters
as you tell it our mad whānau pōrangi
on this first morning of mornings what use sleep?
figures huddle together on frosted balconies
in the treetops pressing stars between the pages
of prayer white openings that glimpse heaven's brilliant
paradise the virgin hope of martyrs we seek out stories
with our bruised eyes the stars' confluence
a bright swelling architecture of souls giving words to
unknowable things celestial nouns in a stellar library
of beauty unimagined painting shadows on our skin
blue marks of remembering the shared lesions of love’s
bone and sinew our private life a public parade of stars
a still-warm astronomy of separated bodies sulphur sparks
and long-haired comets thrown across the intimate distance
more morning than night these acts of contrition
pushing against heaven’s own counteract measuring
our bodies against this urgency this appetite for such larger life
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