Whaitiri Tua-Warbrick (Rangitāne, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Rangitihi) is a Māori poet based in his homeland of Palmerston North. He studied at Massey University, and is soon to receive his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Creative Writing. He otherwise writes tabletop roleplaying games and short fiction, acts in local theatre, and bakes bread. Right now, he is confused at how he got here, but is grateful for the view.
Tua-Warbrick comments: 'This poem found me as I was walking my dog in the summer of 2024 when visiting home. The park that we walk through – more so a couple rugby fields cordoned off from the river by a few old fence lines – had two trees that stood tall but defaced from the recent storms that'd blown through, having been cracked in half due to the high winds and heavy rain. I walked past/around those giants for the better part of a month, watching parts of them change and decay and disappear to firewood, but the trees themselves were standing still, enduring all.
'So, I started to draw on things I knew, things I found funny, shards of wordplay. This poem is a layering of different times, different affects, different tints of things I could closest call love. The truest love I could see in those trees was the love of Ranginui for Papatūānuku, whom I saw loving each other often. In this way, the poem is about a whakapapa of love that I see in the world, and how I caught a glimpse of it one day on a walk that was, in of itself, an act of love. In spite of this, I wouldn't call myself a strong love poet.
'One final note: when I returned to walk my dog around the park this summer, one tree had been chopped down entirely. Maybe it had rotted due to its open core and the returning storms. Maybe it wasn't loved enough. I've no insight to the ineffable now. I just know I miss it.'
Links
Whaitiri Tua-Warbrick's Substack
Whaitiri Tua-Warbrick's Instagram
Photographer credit: Tahu Weenink-Smith