What I Can Bring You Poem by Dr Ronnie Bai

my brothers and sisters
on the other side of the world
is not the melody
of a picture-perfect landscape
enrapturing enough to entice all
the gods and goddesses
from their empty airy airdrome
with the dappled rainbow
trout gliding around the crystal ripples
of streams and rivers and lakes under
snow-capped green mountains
dancing together with pageant peacock’s
dazzling fans
or of the soft swell of the savvying sea
embracing and kissing the salient twin islands
soothing enough to lullaby
the most restless conquerors and emperors
from their bloody battlefields
into a long long deep sleep
on the banquet table fully satiated with
the spoiling trophies of
seafood treasure
unrivalled by all the gold pieces in Solomon’s coffer

but more melodious a melody
passed down from the tribal warrior ancestors
of the Pacific Islands to their sons and daughters
on a peaceful expedition for a pure homeland
a land of rich silver ferns and green pohotukawa,
untroubled by the scorching iron and fire for an expansion
of the blood soaked land strewn with massive graves

a melody forever reverberating
after the warrior dance of haka, and warriess dance of poi
behind the faces tattooed, eyes staring and tongues out poking
around the piercing wooden sticks and cleaving greenstone meres
about the strong-built bodies clad in straw skirts and flax mats

having re-Christianized the Christian James Cook
fully clad in his prim grim Royal Navy uniform
who drew no barren conservation areas on his maps
avoiding another tragic
saga of the scalping and scalped
red Indians
having redeemed the fast and furious Zulu warriors
on the other side of the Indian Ocean
beyond the west of the Pacific Ocean
after having charged and charged at the incredulous
British boys of the brave and brutal
colonial army division
having safely shepherded all the love babies of
of Maoris and Pakehas
without having to wind them up behind
a rabbit proof fence
having shamed the pagan Ku Klux Klan
whose burning crosses
blazing the flesh of Jesus Christ,
not the bodies of innocent black people
whom they lynched at their whimsical idea

a microcosmic melody played and cherished macrocosmically
by Maoris, Melanesian, Polynesians,
Europeans, Asians, Arabians, Africans,
and people from all the five continents
whose pulsating hearts keeping the expectant beat
as they follow the ethereal tune adrift
across the turbulent waters
until they find themselves in the arms
of an earthly mother
at this place which they call HOME
and live peacefully
together happily humming the melody -
quintessentially New Zealand -
the melody