Dough Buoys

      Rise
    in silent kettles, soft & round.
    Whispering within wai, stirring
  steam underneath pōhutukawa
  sky, where the boil-up billowing
the slow rhythms of watercress
laces stories of tūpuna. Now fractured by
smog and lights, urban-gentry marshmallow
hands reach for sweetness—froth-churned
dreams sold with roasted syrup topping coffee
cup lids of ivory tower minds. Dough buoys like
them rose by café ovens, while humbler aquifers
see awa season dough to flow as whāngai kai—
a gentle awhi kneaded with so much care so
city buoys might one day know the savoury
taste of the fields and the roots below—
or remember to take it seriously.

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Kasandra Hart-Kaumoana (Ngāti Manu, Ngāpuhi; Ngāti Mahuta, Ngāti Hīkairo, Waikato-Maniapoto) is a poet, law tutor, and museum host. Her work traces fractures of cultural memory, absence, and irony across shifting landscapes of Te Rohe Pōtae and the whenua beyond.