Hone Tuwhare, Poet

More sad news from New Zealand ... my favourite poet from back home died today.

Martin sent news of it this morning and I raced over to the New Zealand Herald, unable to believe that we could have lost another of my favourite Kiwis.

They wrote: Hone Tuwhare, New Zealand's most distinguished Maori writer, has died aged 86.

This poem is probably my favourite amongst all poems ever read:

Rain
I can hear you
making small holes
in the silence
rain

If I were deaf
the pores of my skin
would open to you
and shut

And I
should know you
by the lick of you
if I were blind

the something
special smell of you
when the sun cakes
the ground

the steady
drum-roll sound
you make
when the wind drops

But if I
should not hear
smell or feel or see
you

you would still
define me
disperse me
wash over me
rain

Hone Tuwhare