Michael O’Leary’s Māori cricket poem

Earlier I wrote an article on Māori cricket in New Zealand. In addition to that article I’d like to share with you a cricket poem written in Māori. There can’t be many cricket poems in Māori (if any) so Michael’s O'Leary's poem is innovative and highly original.

It’s from O’Leary’s 1987 cricket novel Out of It (ESAW: Auckland). New Zealand is playing Out of It in a One-Day match on Eden Park, Auckland, 1980s. The poem is a monologue by the Out of It captain and hero of the match, the famous chief Te Rauparaha. (Titokuwaru, a Māori warrior who became a legend for his guerrilla resistance in the Land Wars of the 1860s, also gets a mention in the novel, however, he didn’t make the Out of It starting XI on the day.) It’s fiction so I guess these two didn’t play cricket but it would be nice to think that they had picked up cricket bats. Te Rauparaha features as a dashing, attacking batsman in Michael’s novel. I presume Titokuwaru would be similarly aggressive as a batsman.

Here’s the poem in Māori, a monologue lament after Te Rauparaha is finally dismissed for a blistering 50, including a number of sixes hit off Sir Richard Hadlee:

Te Rauparaha’s Lament as an Opening Batsman

Kei te anake au

Kei te mokemoke au

Kore rawa hui atu mokemoke

                                    me kia au puritia koe

Taua kia haere ra muringa he haerenga

                                    e hoki ki whare kirikiti

Anei taku momoe mongamonga

                                    i aro i te mana ma kaupapa

Kei ahau he poke

                                    i roto i taku manawa a wairua

Kei te anake au, no reira

Kei te mokemoke au

Kore rawa hui atu mokemoke

Kei te whakama ahau

                                    me kia au puritia koe

                                    e taku taonga porangi, e!

                                                Aue, aue, awatu ...

When I asked Michael for a translation, he kindly sent me the following English version:

Te Rauparaha’s Lament as an Opening Batsman

I am lonely

I am alone

Never more lonely

than when I held you

On the long journey

back to the Pavilion

Again my dreams shatter

with the illusion of reality

There is a hole, a sadness

in my heart and spirit

I am lonely, what is more         

I am alone

Never more lonely

Never more ashamed

than when I held you

my crazy treasure cricket bat

how lamentable …

Thanks Michael.

See also my related blog posts: ‘Māori cricket in New Zealand’ and ‘Michael O’Leary’s cricket novel to be reprinted’.

English and Māori versions of 'Te Rauparaha's Lament as an Opening Batsman' © Michael O'Leary