After the strong response yesterday to the Lake Rotoiti poaching incident, the following story should be compulsory reading…
The question is to put yourself in Kenny’s boots – what would you have done?
No Judgement
(A story from Ken Drummond)
One evening I was on the Waimo eh
A girl on a white horse comes riding up
the river Maori, she says to me please
don’t go round the corner
Why I say, because the boys are coming with
a gill net she says,
They’re using shotguns under the bank
chasing ten in from a pool.
Then it clicked coz I had seen
Their parallel net weight tracks in river sand.
What do you do with them?
I tell you all their neighbors will be eating
fresh fish tonight she says,
Split in half, grilled with tomato and onions,
Families will be eating well,
Even those who have lost their jobs.
So you think they would risk poaching
Even off their own land,
If they had enough to eat?
They’re hungry.
They saw me and we’re going to run,
Or jump into the sharp blackberries so
I whistle piercingly twice into the evening bush
Where in the spring the kowhai bloom so yellow
the fantails are drunk on nectar;
Yes, it’s their own land.
I point downstream the other way
and give them a thumbs up;
You’ve gotta try and understand eh
No judgment.
Waimarino River, Turangi
9 August 2016