Leading from the front issuu

Dedication
To foot soldiers, shipmates and visionaries everywhere. To those who believe
living in kinder, fairer cities is everyone’s right, not just a birth right for some;
Believe, that anything is possible, That ‘history and hope can rhyme’.
THE CURE AT TROY
BY SEAMUS HEANEY —
WHEN HOPE &
HISTORY RHYME
Human beings suffer
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.
TE ORANGA KEI TROY NA.
SEAMUS HEANEY
INĀ TE HUARITE MANAWA
ORA ME TE HITORIA.
Ngākau mōteatea ngā tāngata
Ka tūkino rātou i a rātou anō
Ka pamamae ratou ka whakamāro
Kare he kōrero poto, he whakaaturanga, he waiata
Hei whakatika i ngā hē
Whakamamae me te pākohe
The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.
Te harakore i roto i ngā whāinga
Kia ngātahi te pao i ngā paemaitai
Te matua o te tangata kore kai
Tū ana i roto i te urupā parahanga
Te pouaru a te Pirihimana kei te mau arai
Ka āmai i te whare tūpapaku
History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
Te kī a te hītoria Kaua e wawata
Kei tēnei taha o te rua.
Engari kotahi te wā i roto i tou ao
Te roa e tatari ana mo te tai nui
Kia rewa ake te ture
Me te tangi ngatahi a te wawata me te hītoria.
ABOUT THE POEM — THE CURE AT TROY
Winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature, Seamus
Heaney was an Irish poet, playwright and translator,
born in 1939 and passed away in 2013. Pat first came
across The Cure at Troy when he was in Ireland following
the signing of a peace agreement and this is one
of his favourite poems. Pat often surprises the whānau
with his ability to recite long tracts of his
favourite writings — he knows this one by heart.
This poem gave him a lot of comfort during lock down
last year and when he shared it with his shipmate
Minnie Ratima, it resonated at the deepest level with
her as well.