Tanga Tangan
He wāhine, he whenua, ka ngaro te tangata. (Without women and without land, humanity is lost.) – Maori proverb 1. It is almost evening. Wind-woven birds call over the fields, the sky turns a gentle grey-- Mother’s voice a low melody, her footfall on the chalky steps speaks of the fleeting day… 2. Sad and barefaced in the moonlight you stand like the flame-haired tree seen through our window. Sister, the same hand that last clutched your hand gave me this letter to place under your pillow. 3. Woman-Wife-Warrior: stark and unknowing, my hands still work without rest. All winter long each fugitive day sees my belly growing. Here I am planted, here I become strong. 4. Your tiny hand opens, receives the bright world of an unknowable future. The earth formed you my Daughter, and heaven calls you. Our tears unfold life-breath, blood-pulse, soul-cry, all things made new. This pantun (a traditional Malay poetic form, originally oral) is respectfully dedicated to the women artists of the Mata Aho Collective, Aotearoa. It is a meditation on the installation art work Kaokao #1. The title of the pantun is a portmanteau of the Maori word tangata and the Malay word tangan, meaning “hand”.
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