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Kotahitanga:
A collection of poems

Caring

I couldn’t take it.

I stopped reading about terrorists.
I stopped fretting about conflicts.
I stopped reacting to genocides.
I stopped recoiling from racism and sexism.
I stopped listening to the fracking.
I stopped watching the extinction of species.
I stopped feeling global warming.
I stopped tasting GE manipulations.
I stopped smelling polluted water.

I didn’t want to care.

It won’t happen in my lifetime I rationalised — until the Ides of March — when a baby water dragon roared into my life bringing a new timeline to the back fence, chopped out a hole, filled it with a gate and opened it like a Tardis — catapulting me one hundred years forward with free rein to fear his uncertain future of speed, greed, holy jihads.

Now I’m trying:

I peacefully protest.
I sign petitions.
I support Māori, PI and women.
I donate money.
I use Te Reo.
I buy sustainably.
I subscribe to truthful press.*
I read parties policies.
I vote green and fair.

Now I care.

*e-tangata, The Bulletin, The Spin-off

Maris O’Rourke describes herself as a poet and a peregrina, a writer and a walker. Her work has appeared in a wide range of journals, anthologies and on-line. She has been well placed in many competitions and has also published five children’s books — one in Māori. O’Rourke’s were early settlers in Waikato/King Country and the whānau now have a house in Whāingaroa/Raglan where O’Rourke regularly retreats to write and walk.