Bio
Maris O'Rourke, a New Zealander, has been writing poetry for about two years. She has been published in various issues of Takahē; been accepted for the upcoming Bravado 20; was the runner-up in the Auckland Sonnet competition in 2009; and has been selected for a New Zealand Society of Authors mentorship in 2010 to complete her first book.
Maris O'Rourke
My Islands
Safe from predators
I perch on mountain tops
fragments pulled from
Gondwanaland.
A drowning swimmer
fished up by Maui
I gasp upwards
breathe fire and smoke
from tectonic plates
a Möbius
twist of subduction
slides under Raukawa.
A growing mountain range
on Te Wai Pounamu
I groan upwards
safe from extinction.
Notes:
The Pacific Plate is subducting under the Indo-Australian Plate north and east of New Zealand, but the direction of subduction reverses south of the Alpine Fault where the
Indo-Australian Plate starts subducting under the Pacific Plate.
Raukawa: Cook Strait
Te Ika a Maui (The Fish of Maui): the North Island of New Zealand
Te Wai Pounamu (The place of Greenstone): the South Island of New Zealand