Place names

New Zealand — Silly poems for your backpack

Mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom)

Ao te aroa, Hairi mai,
The Maori language so beautiful
spoken like song,
and easy to rhyme.

Start with the place names,
And memory games,
Tongariro, Whakarewa,
Ohinemuri, Orokawa

Then to the plants and the trees,
Singing along with the breeze,
Pohutukawa, wharariki,
Kowhai and Kauri.

Finally the things held most dear,
To Maoris and others here,
Whakapapa and Whenua,
Kai and Aroha.

While I travel, I enjoy writing a bit of poetry, mostly silly stuff, but all to remember the fun I had.

I publish them all on Medium, so check out my other poems here.