Garlic man

For Ahuwhenua

The sun rises on you
and still the earth is dry

each clove split by your hands
and still no rain

with my father’s handcrafted tool
you plunge tines into cut grass

and roll and roll until your haystack
starts to tremble

days and days go by
the weight of it rotting into goodness

your homemade dibble spacing holes
you, bending under autumnal sun

one and one and one into the earth
weeds and stones gone

nature-sculpted seed now massages narrow shoulders
in the realm of Rongo-mā-Tāne—

the God we all pray to for peace
in our warring time, harmony

and sustenance for starving children
Rongo whose gentle loving mirrors

yours as you patiently wait for green
Gardening is all about patience

like a poem looking for the light
at the end of the burrow, budding

out into Te Ao Mārama 
and we all hurtle—words, bodies, seeds

out into the world of light

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Reihana Robinson’s (Arawa [Ngāti Whakaue], Ngāpuhi) latest book is be the rising human (Off the Common, 2024). Her first poetry collection is part of AUP New Poets 3. Auē Rona (Steele Roberts, 2012) and Her Limitless Her (Mākaro Press, 2018) are her two subsequent volumes.