POETRY KITe ANTHOLOGY

Singing at Sunrise

When he had driven the midwife home
my father hoed potatoes
in his back garden
'Kia Ora' he called to our neighbour
'We had another daughter last night."
our neighbour slapped his knee, and laughed,
"I thought I heard a little waiata in the night"

Later Dad took me, red faced and squawling,
to the fence.
"Well, hello, Waiata Dawn,'
our neighbour said.
And so I was named
by an old man with blue lips
and tattooed cheeks


'Waiata' means song in Maori. The neighbour was one Bob Rori, komatua of Ngati Raukawa.
(first published in Singing at Sunrise, Sviatko Associates, 1992.)