The Calamity ('aitua') Of Creation Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

Night had conceived the seed of night;
The heart, the foundation of night,
Had stood forth self-existing even in the gloom.
The shadows screen the faintest gleam of light:
The procreating power, the ecstasy of life first known,
And joy of issuing forth from silence into sound -
The progeny of the Great-extending filled the heavens' expanse.

[Tane's chant for Creation]

Our ancestors and the elders
Tell of how the sky father Ranginui
And the earth mother Papatūānuku
Were locked together in the ecstasy
Of nothingness, darkness and chaos
Until they were torn apart
Giving birth to Te Ao: the creation
Of the elements and sensation,
Of light and the natural world.

Consider then the pain with which the lovers were parted

Consider the flames, their dangers and their warmth
The lull and anger of the wind in storms and quiet,
The splash of water against your cheek, and the wild seas,
The grounding of the earth as it receives endlessly.

Look again at your lover's smile beckoning:
Hear her say softly or in passion ‘I love you'
Sense again the scent of her hair above the ear
Taste her breath and the saltiness of her lips
Touch the shy curl at the nape of her neck
Or the clefts and furrows that show she is a duality
Joined in symmetry by seams and couplings.

Look again at the sun and its light, and its loss in shadows
Hear the music of the wind caressing and scolding
Sense again the scent of earth after the rain has ended
Taste the dew, and the salt spray from the ocean,
Touch the land that is raised and the land that falls away
That has come together in foregrounds and horizons:
This is the body of the earth mother given anew for you.

'Fire is hot, wind moves,
water is wet, earth hard.
Eyes see, ears hear, nose smells,
tongue tastes the salt and sour.
Each is independent of the other;
cause and effect must return to the great reality
Like leaves that come from the same root.
The words high and low are used relatively.
Within light there is darkness,
but do not try to understand that darkness;
Within darkness there is light,
but do not look for that light.
Light and darkness are a pair,
like the foot before
and the foot behind, in walking.
Each thing has its own intrinsic value
and is related to everything else in function and position'.

Consider then the pain with which the lovers were parted

Then there was the impenetrable and profound darkness -
The inestimable presence that permeates the universe.
Of only dark matter and the matter of darkness
That constituted two lovers locked within the essence of touching.

Then there was no source, no clarity, no brightness
No subjective, no objective, no relative, no absolute:
The lovers were inseparable, dependent, interdependent
There were no edges, no boundaries, no erasures in their love.

Nothing could be lost, nothing pulled away, nothing broken
And they loved each other coalesced, congealed, entangled
Without recognition, atoned only by a raw emotion
The passion to quicken the primordial chaos with our reality.