Tacna-Puno bus
little abuelita
in her thin grey braids
tied together at the tips
sensible shoes and thick nude hose
pink flowered dress
and bougainvillea-tinted cardigan
with a blue pocketed smock over top
brown lined face
and mostly toothless smile
you chatter on
and instead of according you
great respect as expected
folks mostly ignore you
why?
maybe they are crazy ravings
or maybe they were taught
not to speak to “Indians”
red white blue flags
estranged from a country
I’m supposed to call mine
a place meant to stand for something:
freedom opportunity refuge equality
all of those abandoned
subsumed by oligarchy’s will
I see in this new little land
a model that seems unreplicable
a country where the words are going wild
back to the rich Māori meaning-laden names
without the people really noticing
they’ve dropped the English that doesn’t serve
a country built on second chances
filled with nature souls
who want to be out in the bush
in their little kiwi baches
windows fronting the sea
they revel in feeling small
here is a place with an island stripped bare
the people say, together we’ll plant it
and they do
now it’s bush so thick
you wouldn’t believe it’d been farmed
I think of all the reasons it wouldn’t possibly work
at home
look at me – I can barely say Hinóno’éí
let alone speak one living word of it
look at our restoration attempts
riddled with weeds
here in Godzone country
everything seems easier
(except the quakes)
but the locals squint back and shake their heads –
No, it’s not.
New Zealand only found its Māoriness around 1996.
Before that, the Māori language was banned.
We’ve got a noxious weed problem, too,
she says, but we volunteers pull them.
maybe it’s not too late to change
to bring back some substantial bit of
what was lost
maybe our big godforsaken country
could grow a little less corrupt
a little more wild
a little more native
and whole
