Witi Ihimaera - Sky Dancer

“That’s it ,” Arnie said “We’re in a time warp. It’s not just a question of where we are but also of how far back we’ve come —”

The clouds shimmered with the shifting pastels of the dawn horizon. As the glow brightened, they rippled with blues, ochres, vermilions and crimsons. Right at the centre of the glow emerged an orange core.

“The sun is rising,” Arnie said.

“But look at it! It’s so huge, so bright, and the sky, Arnie, it looks so new as if, as if —”

Shades of pink began to spiral out from the core of the sun. They were followed by shades of crimson which, as they reached the earth’s atmosphere, filled the air with auroras that bathed the sky with shimmering beauty. Blessing it, purifying it, sanctifying it. Benediction after benediction.

Skylark turned to Arnie. “You’re right,” she said. “We’ve done it. We’re back at the beginning of Time when the Lord Tane made the world. This is the First Sky, and —” She looked up. Remembered the Great Book of Birds. The clouds were opening like a huge gate. From the other side of it came swathes of glorious excited song. Then there was a boom as the gates opened, and the sound of a laughing voice: “Go then, my impatient ones!”

Skylark took one look at Arnie. “Clear the way!” she yelled.

Brightly coloured ribbons were falling from the sky above them. As they dropped closer, Arnie saw that they weren’t ribbons at all. They were feathers. They were —

“Holy cow!” Arnie said.

Skylark was already streaking clear and away to the perimeters of the sky. Arnie sped after her, spearing into the orbiting sun, and hovered. Currents of disturbed air chased after him.

“It’s the great exodus,” Skylark said with awe. “The Time of the Falling Feathers.”

Great fleets of birds were corkscrewing down through the sky. Dancing, twisting and turning, whirring and jostling, they filled the air with grandeur. As they descended, they sang their songs of liberation, melodies such as the world has never since heard. “The world is ours, sing praises to Tane for his bounty —”

“Let’s follow them,” Skylark said.

She dived after the birds. When she had penetrated the clouds she saw that the world below was filled with light, and thousands of birds — grebes, dabchicks, pigeons, tui, pelicans, herons, egrets, shovelers, cranes, bellbirds, crakes, dotterels, plovers, sandsnipes, curlews, whimbrels, godwits, huia, greenshanks, turnstones, knots, dunlins, sanderlings, kea, parakeets, cuckoos, kingfishers — were making their way across a brilliant azure sea. Way out on point were albatrosses. Guarding the upper air was a flight of hawks.

“Hey, there’s some of my cousins!” Arnie said. Skylark watched as he joined the hawks. One in particular was very playful, and Skylark knew intuitively that she was a female. But there was no time to protest. All of a sudden she felt the buffeting of the wind.

Shadows were cast in the sky. Skylark found herself in the slipstream of some hard-pressed swans and heard them chanting: “Hii haa! Hii haa!” What were they doing? Skylark moved out of the shadows and saw that the sky was filled with hundreds of giant canoes. Each canoe was made up of groups of swans flying in close formation.

“Neke neke! Neke neke! Keep your ranks!” The giant sky-going waka cruised above and around her, making a slow descent. Across their backs, hanging on for dear life, were moa, kiwi, weka, moorhens, kakapo, penguins and other flightless birds being carried down to the Earth. Flycatchers, finches and starlings twitted and twirled among the swans, soothing their fears. Authoritative kaka, like canoe captains, shrilled their orders, encouraging the swans onward. “Toia mai, nga moa! Ki te urunga, nga kiwi —”

Skylark felt her breath catch with wonder. She even failed to notice Arnie’s return until he nudged her. “My cuzzies wanted me to stay with them,” he said, irritated she hadn’t missed him. “One of them was a cute terciel,” he hinted.

“What’s that?”

“A female,” he said nonchalantly. “But I told her I was with you.”

“You can go if you want. I can always ask for help from some of my kind,” she said. Two could play that game.

To prove her point, Skylark flew off to join some bush wrens. She assumed they would welcome her with open wings. But some of them started to jostle her and she was soon surrounded by a small group of males who were getting too close for comfort. She slapped one of the bush wrens with a wing and hurried back to Arnie.

“So what happened,” Arnie asked, pleased to see her back. “Didn’t you want to stay with your kind?”

“Hmph,” Skylark glared at him. “Men! You’re all the same .”

By this time, all the birds that had been waiting in the upper sky had been released, trillions of glittering feathers falling through the air. Some began to wheel away from the main exodus: mollymawks, fulmars, petrels, prions, shearwaters, frigate birds.

“The seabirds are claiming their dominion,” Skylark said.

Dizzy with delight, the seabirds were diving into the teeming sea, bountiful with darting fish. The albatrosses among them ceased their point duty and began to wheel away into the distance.

For the landbirds, however, the exodus was not yet over. On they flew — fantails with owls, robins with quails — towards the horizon. The smaller birds, tiring of the long flight, took respite by resting on the giant swan canoes as they continued to strain across the sea.

“Neke neke! Keep your ranks! Neke neke!”

Suddenly the swallows, which had been scouting far ahead, came streaking back from the horizon. Something was there, awaiting the exodus. The birds redoubled their efforts.

“Hii haa! Hii haa!”

Gradually, something began to appear. Something bright. Something wondrous. On the horizon something was lying like a huge smooth piece of pounamu washed by the sea. The greenstone was glowing, glorious.

“It’s Aotearoa,” Skylark said.

The sky began to sing. A great trilling filled the air, a karanga to the land. “Receive us, welcome us, open to us.” The birds announced they were coming.

“We’re almost there,” Skylark cried.

The wind came up from the south, buffeting the birds. Some were blown high and some were blown low.

The wind was cold and strong, and Skylark began to shiver

“Hang in there, Skylark,” Arnie said.

Skylark and Arnie flew onward, intent on making landfall. As they approached, the land fragmented into two main islands — Te Waka a Maui and Te Wai Pounamu. The wind increased, funnelling through the strait between the two islands. The ocean stormed through the break and, on its front, dolphins were leaping.

“Aren’t you glad we’re not on a ferry?” Skylark asked Arnie with an impish look.

A mood of anticipation came over the landbirds. They began to circle and circle in that midway place, calling their farewells to each other. Some split away, parrots and other birds, twirling like brightly ribboned cyclones, heading upward to the warmer climate of the north. The swans, however, flew their giant waka bearing the moa southward where there were grazing grounds. “Neke neke! Hii haa!”

The blue sky was a maelstrom of feathers as the birds chittered and chattered and wheeled in all directions. “Which way should we go?” Arnie asked Skylark.

Skylark hovered, unsure. She remembered Lottie’s instructions: Just head for the rainbow. But where was it?

“There!” Arnie cried. “To the south.”

Even as he pointed Skylark saw it — the First Rainbow in the World being born out of the cradle of the sea. Where it began, the water bubbled and hissed, creating myriad water spouts. Up the rainbow came, woven by those water spouts, taking colour and strength from them, vaulting the dome of the sky from east to west like a blessing.