Love Poem: Aroha Nz
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Written by: Virginia Waters

Aroha Nz

this is my song,
  my love song of you,
    my land, my heart

             love for green ferns
                      silver beneath
                               volcanic lakes so deep
                                            taniwha never disturbed
                      tane mahuta 
                      ancestral wisdom
                        sings his love
                          of freedom
                          of power                                         listen O dwellers
                                          for the great king's ways

this is my song,
   my love song of you,
     my land, my heart

                       mountains lifted to snow
                           lovingly protect greenstone below
                                 rocks and grasses bear wind
                                      centuries blown
                                                          tiers of bush
                                                             house birds of cheek
                                                                 keas that wreck 
                                                                     anything loose
                         kiwi flightless night worm hunters
                             listen as little ruru calls
                                'morepork morepork'

                            love for the swamplands
                                full of raupo and pukeko
                                        flaxes edge all
                                               tall sentinels bearing
                                                    bearing beloved tui nectar
                                                          spears

this is my song
   my love song of you 
     my land, my heart

                        love soars high
                            to black sand beaches
                               constant companions
                                   to white thrashing surf
                                          merging with stony clear 
                                             eel filled rivers 

                 love surges forth to oceans of
                     silver muscled kawhai
                  delights for stomach and eye
                        birds of sky and sea
                          gather love to me

this is my song
   my love song of you
     my land my heart

N.Z. waiata - aroha (class)
maori poem song
23-8-18