A Sonnet: Written After Visiting The Statue Of Tame Horomona Rehe, A.K.A. Tommy Solomon, On Chatham Island Poem by Dr Ronnie Bai

Standing on th’ tiny weeded allotment
In th’ far south corner of the nine hundred
Square kilometres of th’ thriving island
Is th’ life-sized statue of a human giant.
His thirty-stone body boasts far bigger
A soft heart that was to all visitors
Open, and his smiling eyes still glimmer
The sparks of whale riders and seal hunters.
His strong arms hanging down afront limply,
With his ten stiff fingers devoutly crossed
Atop his Western shirt ’nd tie murmurs he –
As the last full-blooded Moriori,
I’ll claim not the whole island, which we swapped
For the Bible. Trust me, or demolish me.