AROHANUI HOROMAKA
As one recalls a lover’s first touch
Horomaka
so do I remember
your detail.
The seaspray rough at Birdlings
and the lone gull that drifts
above Onawe.
It is these parts of you
Horomaka
that craft my need
to know you more
and love you.
To understand your fiery youth
and how you surrendered
fingers spread.
And those who entered in
Horomaka
named you for your shared affinity
Rapanui the canoe’s sternpost
Horomaka speed of the waka
Te Pataka storehouse
of Te Rakaihautu.
And only one ignored
your invitation
sailed past
at distance unaware
except to mark you plainly
Banks Island
named for someone
other than yourself.
That’s the English for you
Horomaka
intimacy left
for dark nights
and Frenchmen.
Arohanui tau aroha
loved one
Many are the pathways to your heart.
Please return to the Tuesday Poetry Blog and view our 2nd birthday poem lovingly composed by 26 global poets. http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.co.nz/ 
gurglewords 
Hi Helen – good to find this poem here on our birhday. Thank you for sharing it and for all the other poems you bring to Tuesday Poem every week, and for your weekly support of the community as a whole. We appreciate it very much. Here we are now two! Mary & Claire.
Thank you Mary and Claire. It is a great pleasure to be a part of the Tuesday Poets’ Blog. Such lovely company. Such warm hearted people. The Birthday Poem shows that. Well done both of you …your energy and enthusiasm has inspired us all.
I heard an actor say that when he studied a character the first question he asked himself was ‘Where does he/she come from?’. I suppose, in the same way you need ‘to understand your fiery youth’ in order ‘to know you more/and love you’. Such a dignified, durable poem of homage, Helen. It speaks the bond with Horomaka that I feel but couldn’t have framed in words.
yes Jane something like that. Like an older person I suppose…once one understands where they got their various scars and wrinkles one has more appreciation of them. 😉 Thankyou.