By Mercedes Webb-Pullman

low tide at Tutukaka;
sea-front pohutukawa’s
scarlet blossoms

match channel markers

the mud salt rot smell
is unchanged

flags from different worlds
wave in the new marina
where once my father, my uncles
caught schnapper

rigging clatters
in the breeze
drowning sounds
of flax chatter

I raise a beer

to family bones

in the hills behind me

and the off-shore wind
blows a hollow tangihanga
over the bottle neck

another message
years have rendered
cryptic

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