Matariki walks into Otahuhu Library
pretty in uniformed white and burgundy
school bag over her shoulder
red teuila behind her ear
she sits down regally among a sea
of white-capped collared students

she asks
Ms, what's Matariki all about?
What's writing poem's got to do with it?
Why's the Maori New Year celebrated now and here?
And who cares if the Pleiades shift?

I said
Write of what you remember.
Write about your lost and found.
Write the toiling of the year's grief.
Write the seeding of new ground.

Matariki turned the land of her body
and breezed, I lost my mum in January this year
and I really, really miss her.

And Matariki and me
like black stars shooting
soared the heavens for lost mums
and new beginnings

We came to see their spirit
in that blue star shine
it glowed across Matariki's hand
and spread towards mine

In muted milky-way HB
Matariki wrote her swirling vortex down
and I read of Rihanna, songbird warrior
and of her prince, Chris Brown

of how Chris had hit and hit
the supposed love of his life
a black eye, a fat lip
and scars left inside

Matariki penned Rihanna's defeat
not of being hit, but of going back
of how Women's Weekly recorded the retreat
of Songbird Queen trumped by Jack

I asked about the poem's relevance
and Matariki said
My mum would never let that be me
Chris Brown would be dead

She'd swoop in with my six aunties
and make each of his nineteen years pay
they'd black-hole the arrogance out of anyone
who'd treat their Matariki that way

I watched Matariki
pretty in burgundy
come into her name that day

I knew a star in blue
enlarged by two
when it heard what her poem had to say.