Published in HERE magazine, issue 7, 2021
Waitara flows with significance, as the flashpoint of the wars, but also and always as a humble river who named the town. It ebbs and flows from crystal clear to muddy brown depending on what’s happening up river, carrying stories from Taranaki mounga, who sometimes appears in the distance. The sucken-in township dosen’t boast of its beauty for fear of being found out. I’ve never lived by a river before, Auckland kept me somehow preoccupied with beaches and art galleries, bushwalks and long blacks.
The river out my window, is hidden from my view by ANZCO, a meat processing factory, but it pulses when the kahawai are running and hosts bombs off the bridge when the weather is hot. The people here are hard working and sincere yet seem worn down by the changing world beyond their borders. Or they’re tired of a world within their borders that hasn’t changed enough. 4am morning shifts take over from the 6pm nightshift, the carpark capacity rises and falls like the tide.
Manukorihi and Pukekohe pā appear above the town that bends towards the coast. During the weekends the locals lay down their tools, ‘round midday, and head to the edge of the world; always with fish ‘n’ chips and children in arms, speaking te reo, calling for caution and concealing all their H’s in effortless Taranaki mita. They make their way to the rivermouth where the two bodies of water meet, to be cleansed and renewed and whispered to by the wind, which sounds (somehow) different down here. It revives those who wander the shore and propell surfcasters into the sea. The wind slackens for those setting up bonfires as the stars emerge, children collect driftwood as the grownups discuss the week ahead not knowing what the future will hold.
