Be CIND

Alison Shrigley Reporter from Whangārei Leader

As Summer waned and Autumn loos'd,
lightly tethered leaves,
A hemis-fear away families blanched,
and all-together grieved.

Bands of whistling, darkening clouds,
chimed in with bell-vire' towers,
And squalled upon our sacred shores,
their deadly Covid showers.

Harken! Forced to act and act with force,
stepped-up our stately queen,
Her A-team laboured as surgeons might,
in a patient's dream.

Locked-down, not out, our nation true arose,
to smote the viral foe,
E-sent workers, checkpoint heroes, all of us,
battled toe-to-toe.

'Tihei mauri ora!' encored high-up ancient folk,
a'bow in Matariki,
'Toia mai! Toia mai!' rejoined our captain queen,
with wiri feathered tiki.

O! As Maui had once pulled and fought,
to bare for us our lands,
So a'same our nation pulling taut was hauled,
by Jacinda Ardern's calloused hands.

Many lives were saved and others cared a'not,
as our strategy evolved,
Vigilance with contact tracing, upped in rank,
For those in health were gold.

As wild winds calmed, light flittered, coloured,
with pi-waka amongst our forest trees,
Thoughts turned to thank our selfless leader,
who'd brought us off our knees.

NZ paused a'mome' upon creative gesture,
of pure variant-word idea,
To capture 'cind' [kind] as in her name we see,
O! Our gift to her was clear.

'Be kind', her call, as 'cind' we immortalise it,
by quill and worded power,
As 'cind', our hearts rejoice, her legacy to us,
in our nations darkest hour.

#cindappreciationPM

Artwork: Samantha Knightbridge
www.misshauora.wordpress.com......

Poem: Harko Brown
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