Harakeke Bob

Rain status
uterine status
flowering status
actually remembering status
finally align.
On my knees
knife in hand
head in harakeke.
Karakia
Tahi, rua, toru
45 degrees
A year on from moving in
I have almost erased
the convenience scars
of the previous owners’ management
decapitated children and parents laid to rest
blunt-truncated grandparents relieved of
their rain-catching frayed disgrace.
Our ignorance will always encompass
most of the knowledge in existence.
If no-one had told me
or I hadn’t thought to ask
I’d be trigger hacky too.
Snail, clueless
is in the way
like me
like the harakeke
(or the driveway).
I tip my hat
skip ahead
step around
circle back later
no more dishonour in these leaves.
Harakeke tikanga is slow
patient
courteous
the cosmetic submitting to wellbeing
tidy deferring to remembrance
closure yielding to honour
and I know
I don’t yet know
the half of it.