Across the sea and through a vast land
we travelled to see the heart of another’s home.
Our hosts asked of us two things:
take no pictures, do not climb the rock.
They had been here since creation
to drink the water and to learn.

The Pakeha of this land had preceded me.
I watched us take pictures of every facet.
I learned how my people had climbed
and when we summitted, like true Victorian conquerors
we shit on the Red Rock itself
poisoning the water below.

Yet Uluru stands in solemn and proud defiance
with infinite and indominable mana.
Restoration was already underway, but
our behaviour had left its legacy.
And I felt shame, for had I not learned in time
I would have darkened the stain myself.

We sat still with the quiet sadness, and
incensed, we felt the hot-blooded anger
of a thousand thousand generations screaming for justice.
But then we felt the timeless weight of Uluru’s presence:
“I am not yours to heal, just as I was not yours to desecrate.
Put your back to me and never return.”

We fled back to Aoraki
where our colonial mistakes are less obvious
and restoration is further along.
Where our hosts have been partners for longer
and where although there are still stains
they are familiar to me.