Hīkoi
By Chris Cormack
The pōhutukawa hasn’t bloomed yet
but already the streets pulse red
with flags that speak of sovereignty,
of promises made beneath different stars.
Fifty thousand, they said,
then seventy, then a hundred—
counting became pointless
when the hills themselves seemed to move
with the weight of the people.
Down Lambton, past the cafes
where tourists usually sit,
past the heritage buildings
that have seen other marches,
other moments when the land
remembered itself.
The Beehive hums its concrete song
while tino rangatiratanga flags
snap like thunder in the northerly,
their red and white and black
making semaphore signals to tīpuna
who walked here first.
The air thick with karanga,
with waiata, with chants in two tongues
that become one voice:
Not one step back,
Not one comma changed,
Not one letter erased
from what our ancestors signed.
The harbour watches, as it always has,
The children of Tangaroa dancing
on the edge of the city that grew up around a document
defended generation after generation.
This is how sovereignty looks:
Like grandmothers in comfortable shoes
Like students with protest signs
Like businessmen still wearing suits
Like families pushing strollers
Like kaumātua leading karakia
Like a hundred thousand stories
converging on a single street
on a summer day
when the nation
remembered
its name.