Ōwheo

Dunedin’s Water of Leith originates high above the city and finds its way to the harbour basin by wending its way through Leith Valley, Woodhaugh and the University of Otago campus. Its Māori name is Ōwheo, which recalls Wheo, a chief whose home was near the river’s mouth.

My poem ‘Ōwheo’ was published in ‘The Situation’ series, NZ Poet Laureate blog, curated by David Eggleton, 2021. A version of this poem was set by composer Anthony Ritchie for sopranos, SATB choir, strings, taonga pūoro and organ, and premiered at a 2019 concert in the Dunedin Town Hall as part of the University of Otago 150th celebrations.

Ōwheo

How strange it is, a river, made of motion,
made of air, the way it’s every moment

its own catchment and its own release,
full presence, incomplete trajectory,

each rill containing every upstream rill,
each ripple-surge a leading edge that,

in the instant of its observation, dissolves,
pours forward and entirely follows, source

and seeking – both – with all it was
propelling all its going, so that the current

singing to the clock tower from the weirs
is more than it appears, and utters it, karakia

to the summit’s wind, the moon, the stars,
the cap cloud streaming over Cargill,

so that to cross Ōwheo on the footbridge is to cross

dawn chorus, evening roost, the ruru,
frost-beaded moss, five-finger, broadleaf, fern,

whip-tailed kōura in the dappled burn,
deleatidium, smelt, a fuchsia flower afloat,

the ghostly chunk-chunk-chunk
of watermills, and hammer-echo, axe,

the pin-point glow shone in by fungus gnats
from mucus droplets strung on silk

the footprints of a mayfly strutting
on the pollen-dusted riverskin – is to cross

a long kōrero, whose strands and trails
and traces whisper, babble, surface, disappear,

a telling in the valley of its knowing,
if we would but learn to hear.

University of Otago 150th Anniversary

A version of Ōwheo was performed at the University of Otago’s 150th Anniversary Concert on 2 June 2019. The music was written by Anthony Ritchie, with the lyrics by Sue Wootton below. A recording of the performance can be heard here:

Each rill contains
its every upstream rill
and all it was
propels its going

The current
singing to the Clock Tower

from the weirs
is more than it appears

and utters it:

(Each rill contains
its every upstream rill)

karakia

to the summit’s wind
the moon, the stars,

the cap cloud
streaming over Cargill

Each rill contains
its every upstream rill
and all it was
propels its going

so that to cross Ōwheo
on the footbridge

is to cross
a long kōrero

Each rill contains
its every upstream rill

a source and seeking – both –
whose strands

and trails
and traces

whisper, babble,
call,

is to cross
the future

Each rill contains
its every upstream rill

and to cross a fugue
against forgetting

is to cross
dawn chorus

evening roost, the ruru
beaded moss, five-finger,

broadleaf, fern,
the summit’s wind,

the moon, the stars,
the cloud cap streaming over Cargill

Each rill contains
its every upstream rill
and all it was
propels its going