Indigenous love will prevail.
It has prevailed for millenia,
and will continue to prevail.
For 500 years
the colonial machine has thrown everything it has at us
It has literally dropped nuclear bombs on us
And when the dust settles, we are still here.
Standing in our righteous truth,
in spite of all its bloodstained, stolen wealth,
armed multitudes
and ill-gotten political power,
it has still not succeeded in its intent
to rid the world of us,
so that it can live guilt free of its shameful greed
The colonial God must be frustrated, indeed.
The “good doctor” Isaac Featherston said
that the duty of the colonizer
Is to smooth the pillow of the dying native,
so that history will have no reproach.
Yet here we are today.
Maintaining true history,
calling out his absurdity.
And it’s the colonizer
who cannot sleep at night
No cool underside of the pillow
For sweaty colonial fever-dreams
Huffing and puffing their projections
Flailing desperately, calling everyone else
The abuser
The beneficiary
The thief
Their morbid fear of being exposed
Surpassed only by the dread of retribution
Underwritten by the lack of requisite imagination
to comprehend the power
of Indigenous love.
Indigenous love will prevail.
Did you ever consider
that our very creation story, is a love story?
The Indigenous, immortal love of Rangi and Papa.
A love that prevails even in separation,
with every dew drop
with every rainfall
with every sigh of mist.
A love that brought forth trees, and streams,
wind, and fire,
the moon, the stars
and all of us
standing here today.
Products of unwavering, enduring, ever-expanding
Indigenous love.
Indigenous love will prevail.
Because it remembers.
It is the love of ancestors
never forgotten.
Loved in song, in story,
In lullaby and oratory.
Passed on, and on,
like the waves of our Moana
A never ending series of new beginnings,
new Indigenous love stories
prevailing against the odds
Over, and over again.
It is the love of elders
And respect for all they have survived,
all the Indigenous love they have carried
for us, the new generation of Indigenous lovers.
It is the love, and protection
of women and children
and generations yet to come.
It is the love of babies
born and died long before us
who never returned home from school.
It is the timeless call for justice.
The call for women
to be returned
with dignity
from landfills
back to their families
who have never stopped loving them.
There is nothing as limitless
as the bonds of Indigenous love,
invoked across eons.
Connections spanning back
and forward
through time
And out across the universe
to all species,
and elements
Both seen and unseen
All of whom can be called upon
So that we can, and will, prevail
Indigenous love
is the love of land,
the love of water,
the love of skies.
It is the love the world needs.
The love that started with Her.
The love of Papatuanuku,
for all her children.
From the river to the sea
Across to Kanaky
Always was, always will be.
Indigenous love will prevail. ✊🏾❤️
