he kotuku rerenga tahi

I spent this evening at Hongoeka marae in the company of the two people who have written my favourite texts in the whole wide world. If there was an Alice Literary Prize, the fiction prize would go to Patricia Grace for Baby No Eyes and the poetry prize would go to Joy Harjo for Perhaps the World Ends Here. The evening was amazing, and started with Megan, Mum and I driving out together through crazy rain to Plimmerton. We were welcomed onto the marae and then had kai, followed by an evening of musical and literary entertainment. A real whanau affair. Awesome. There is *so* much to say about the evening, and so I'll just share a few key bullet points, many of which are likely to turn up in poems. Think of them as poem starters, and if you write one share it with the rest of us:
* I told Mum and Megan that I was excited to be going out to Hongoeka because I hadn't been out there before - Mum corrected me, and told me that this was where we used to come paua diving when I was little (before we moved to Auckland when I was 5). I have strong albeit imagistic memories of diving for paua with Dad when I was young, and all this time I hadn't clicked it was there.
* It snowed at Hongoeka today! Yes, where it has never snowed before apparently! Right beside the sea!
* Matua Dick Grace was telling us about the rocks which were hauled out of the ocean right by the marae and taken by truck to Wellington for the airport extension - literally hauled out, some of them still had paua on them!
* We sang 'Whakataka te hau' as our waiata - not often you get to sing about snow and know that it's falling outside!
* The whanau of the marae brought kai from their kitchens to the wharekai in crockpots - this was exactly how we catered the 'after match' after we buried Grandad! All of these family crockpots of different makes, models and eras, lined up on a table...
* Joy Harjo stood and sang about the voices and character of her own people as they journeyed on then Trail of Tears. She talked about the many trails of tears experienced by Indigenous people all around the world, when they are forcibly removed from their lands.
* Patricia Grace, who makes me totally nervous because I'm so in awe of her fantasticness, stood in the kitchen and called across 'Alice, come and have some pudding!' -

All of these are reasons to write, reasons to go and reasons to come home.