Poem of the Week: Shane Cave’s Smile – Kāpiti and Coast Independent

Smile and the world smiles with you … Stanley Gordon West

Joy in smiling

By Roger Childs

You always feel better when people smile at you.

One of the joys of running or walking is that invariably people coming the other way, whether you know them or not, will greet you and smile.

Last week I was jogging back from the gym and came past the new seat that overlooks the wetland by the Wharemauku Stream. There was a girl of about ten sitting there and she turned, said Hullo! and smiled.

In Shane Cave’s words: I saw a kindly smile today, smiled back, and was happy.

Smile

I saw a kindly smile today.

Two unknown eyes met mine.

I did not know their owner,

nor their owner me.

But a wrinkle at each eye’s edge,

puckered lips and rounded cheeks

meant we smiled and passed by,

a fleeting touch of shared souls

among the countless

who are one-alone, but then are not.

Narrow hall, a pause,

a tilted head and gentle wave of hand, please pass by.

Dark night and light-flashed face,

never seen before, but not a stranger.

Smiled remembrance — always known.

Familiar touch — among the unmet.

Not one — one of many.

I saw a kindly smile today,

smiled back,

and was happy.

Shane Cave

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STORY OF THE WEEK

Kāpiti Coast councillors have toured of one of Aotearoa's unique buildings, the heritage - listed Rotunda at the former Otaki Health Camp, the country’s first.

Jeremy Smith reports that the 105-year-old, eight-sided rotunda predates the Health Camp.

It wasn't actually built in Otaki, but was one of two built in Rotorua in 1915 as part of a military hospital, on the site of Rotorua’s present public hospital.

Later they were taken to Otaki for the opening of the health camp in 1931.

Full story in the main column (December 19).

100 Years Ago — and the Maori Long March begins

Māori politics was dominated by the influential MPs (and sometime Cabinet ministers) Māui Pōmare ( Waitara statue photo above) and Apirana Ngata.

The 1920's also saw the rise of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana’s religious movement, and the emergence of Te Puea Hērangi in Waikato.

Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.

He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).

The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.

Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.

Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.