Pupurangi Shelley

I am a kauri snail kaitiaki
look on my green spiral shell 
ye mighty and despair
I admit I've eaten 
noke or native worm sushi
but I am a hundred millimeters
long and move at 0.013 m/s
through the Whirinaki,
the Tai Tokerau, Waitakere
and Kaimai ranges
to reside outside New World Gate Pā, 
Pak N Save Ruapekapeka,
and the Ōhaeawai Four Square
teaching our kids
their history at 2am or thereabouts
distributing udon noodles
from the dumpsters
so our kids can save the noke.
I miss most my kauri trees
with their big trunks
that sing with the wind
and admit they stretch
taller than my tall tentacles.
I tell the tamariki
our whānau’s whakapapa goes 
for 200 million years
beyond the Treaty of Waitangi
and James Busby picked up
our tūpuna in a tentacular blink
twice giving us his surname,
Paryphanta Busbyi Busbyi
making it all about him.

Aroha mai, sorry,
I must eat and run.