I n M y G r a n d m o t h e r ‘ s G a r d e n

20 April 2020

Reflective entry regarding the enforced Covid 19 bubble, memory and gathering

Featured image: Rangihīroa, ‘Tōtara North, Ditch‘ 10.51 am, 1 September 2019, captures a stretch of road that once was the life blood of the little kauri timber milling community on the Northwestern side of the Whangaroa Harbour. To the left at the entrance of the road is the hall where pictures used to be projected and cricket was played on grounds that today are being reclaimed by the arterial fingers of the harbour. The road leads up towards an historic graveyard where many of the colonial families are buried (including my mother, my grandparents, my aunties, uncles and Pākehā ancestors) assembled together as they once were in life. Further on is the nineteenth century school which many of these loved ones attended. For 6 months in 1970 I would walk with cousins from the corner where the bus would drop us off. I sometimes had bare feet and I remember the soft soles of my town feet didn’t much like the loose metal road. That was 1970.

© Rangihīroa Panoho, 2019-2024. No part of this document (text or imagery) is free to be copied, plagiarised or shared for publication or for uses neither intended nor agreed on by the author without his express permission. Details for writing to the author are as follows: blueskypanoho@icloud.com 


I remember the hillside you planted in edible green

And hours spent weeding, picking beans

cutting courgettes up there

killing holiday time on the windy ridge

amongst red soil soaking up afternoon sun

drying ocre encrusted feet and

penitent knees

overlooking the Whangaroa

Continue reading “I n M y G r a n d m o t h e r ‘ s G a r d e n”