Sea Wrack
 
 

Beloved,
How clearly I see the slant of your face, as I stare into the fire.
I feel these young faces sunk, somehow, into the distance,
while the old stare,
lost in the firelight's flickering,
tasting their own memories.
All falls away into the memory of voices
murmuring,
and the small hissing of the fire.

I hear you clearly now.
You always said,
"far too clear" my hearing,
all too clear when it concerns me
and mine,
never mind that I do not always understand
the meaning of what I hear.

I see you, as I said, 
bent to the children, hushing their excitement, 
quieting their thudding breath, 
"don't tell your mother,
should it not be so, 
such hurt would pierce her
through the heart"

My love, the Inner Spirit's heroes always came, lost and abandoned
out of the sea, 
did they not? 
And yet I often wonder in the twilight hours, why of them all
our son was different.

There was Uther's son,
snatched from his mother, tightly wrapt
and run from the womb down the tight cold stair to the sea;
and the king's son of Alba carried over sea
the starfired sea,
to Skye -
the king always over the water;
and Moshë the law giver, face full of unbearable light,
rocked in a little reed basket by the river's flooding tide; 
as if by this gift we might know them, and ourselves
Damater's Elusian children, spirit born, 

foam born like aphrodite from our father's
severing, or tossed by Manahir's horses 
and the winds of war
out on the ravaged shore.

whose flesh know earth's cold
 indifference, 
and sea's wild cradling in our blood:

we are not,
any of us, 
altogether 
born 
of that soft nurturing flesh that forms us 
or the seed that flows

And we who by the water and the blood are birthed
still must be born again, 
self-formed
reflecting what we are
And out of that abyss, be formed
after the image of our solitary soul. 

out of the lonely place within,
abandoned, cursed and lost. 

Sure it was that the old man, Merlin, shook his head, 
spreading his gnarled and coarsened hands, over the babe - 

or was it? 
I disremember, 

Tama nui ki te Rangi, beachcomber,
teaching him magic, and the songs of lifting
wandering the shore who cried, Child. 
The birds will love you though you bring them pain?

I saw you look then, noted not your troubling, saw only 
my hair upon the shawl, 
the tiny pebble and the shell, 
the wizened berries full of salt, and knew

Oh Knew 
my Son! 
and cried aloud for joy and prattled, prattled, endlessly 
and wept, 
and laughed, and cried aloud again.
and wondered not that you 
looked rather at my face,
and shook your head, 
and thought 
thoughts 
silently.

The old man was happy to be pottering with the boy, 
as time wore on and he grew up,
but sometimes he looked at him with some kind of sorrow, 
shook his head. Remember he said once, 
-beloved, have I said this? 
Understood it not?

"The birds will love you, 
but you'll hurt them, boy" 

and
so it was, 
always and ever, 
that that boy was dealt love
and rendered pain. 

And yet he knew me not 
was full of mischief as the day is long,
he tied my days in knots. 

Too impatient to be born, some boys. 
I hear their feet thudding on the path even now
slanting round the rift in the grass and their breathless voices
crying the news that Tama nui ki te Rangi had a bay-bee
mum! hanging in the rafters of his hut and would I come.

There he was, the old man by the sea, 
tall, and looking out as always, 
over the waves toward the horizon 
as if he were sniffing the clouds for flotsam

Well then, he had found it. 
A bundle in seaweed and driftwood 
surrounded by gulls, lapped by a jellyfish
he'd borne it home to hang above the fire until it wriggled. 

I've heard it said he gave us much, but I'm not sure of that. 
Worrying Taranga as he did us, 
claiming to be her boy.
Perhaps he was, 
Maui tikitiki a Taranga
but then, 
they were as different as we, 
and he ripped their secrets from them, 
wilfully tore their inner being as he tore - 

well. You remember.
Every word conjures another example
out of the jetsam of memory onto the shore of thought. 

Perhaps as you listen, bright eyed to the memory 
you can imagine my joy, 

how my feet flew down the path to the beach, 
how my tongue babbled at Tama, 
who stared out of the silent, windblown surfaces of his quiet mind 
and looked as if he held his tongue. 

He showed me the little pebble and the shell, 
the now blackened puriri, like beads upon the shawl, 
held the tiny feather in his coarsened hands, 
and sighed a thought
while I held the child
and patted him and fussed
and saw him stare at me 
and took no note. 

"Mum", they would say to me, "don't let him" 
but I'd turn,
 and make another cloak for Maui, 
or cook a special food if he was out of sorts,
and tell them helplessly 
"look after your brother, on the trip" knowing inside 
that he would lead them, 
haplessly, into some mischief 
though their older souls be blamed for all
before the dusk. and 

"Mum,  don't weep so", in the dark, 
"we love you"..

well, and so I did, but "lets go fishing"  is the cry
and off they stream into the morning light 
laughing and chanting 
and his father says, "No harm,
turn in your sleep beloved, 
oh
return to the sleeping mat, 
and rest"

We heard them singing out over the greying tide, and knew them safe
 in Tangaroa's watch
 and ate a little and retired again. 
Knowing they'd hooked some creature, large and deep,
thinking their uncle played with them,
and taught them respect of the hunter
for the predatory prey,
and settled thankfully.

Day followed night and still their voices sang
no fear, the resonance of magic thrilled the inner ear,
while the chant rose shivering through the dawn,
singing the struggle of the boyish mind,
against the rope's rough burning, and the weariness of flesh
and we were thrilled and proud
proud of the chant of patience,
perseverance
bravery and blood
night followed day

Until the sea cried one 
great bell-like cry
and the air stood
        still
a silent thunderclap
       a shuddering,
and the great rolling wall of sea sighing

Tsunami powering, ocean to ocean's crest, the wall pouring,
thousands on thousands of miles long wailing towards us 
like the battle song

sea boiled against their tiny boat and night span with the dizzy stars
and still we heard him sing
alone of all his brothers yet
lifting and lilting, 
chanting the depths of the sea to rise, 
lifting his prey 
relentlessly.

deep glance between us we ran,
the wrong way,
 Tane and I to our sons
watched the shore  rising and the whole sea tilt
running towards us like a monstrous tide, 
saw Papa tu a nuku rising from the sea
and turning in her giant sleep and settling.

lifted our heads to the moon, 
the great unceasing chant that lifts the earth
out of her healing in the sea
rising and falling
caressing and calling 
commanding 
the mother 
out from her son's comfort
unprotected,
into the scalding air
and silent, waiting for horror 

over the outpouring sea, heard our sons, crying
fighting; the sound of machete's dull fall, 

"Mine! Mine! it is Mine!"
Sharing the flesh of their grandmother, the earth
flayed by the wind

They cut her
and trampled,
battled and fought 
while the gulls cried and wheeled
and the boy smiled with white teeth in the night. 

Tane and the Uncles running through the dark, 
gone to make peace; still the storm,
Tangaroa shuddering with the pain of loss 
turning the waves of passion back upon themselves and rocking, 
saving our dwellings and the trees 
upon the shore, taking the impact deep within his inner self, 
Tawhiri towering into heaven from the shock of Papa's rise 
and singing with his pain and grief, 
rolling his winds like surf, down from the violated sky..

Long before they trailed home, shame faced, 
bloody and trembling for the want of sleep, 
and fierce possessiveness

their father already walked the new land, 
whispering to Papa, singing his mother's comfort, 
clothing her in grass and baby trees, 
searching the wounded rifts and touching her
crooning, while Tangaroa lapped her sides, whimpering to see her so exposed,
and Tawhiri for once helping him, singing a warm breeze and weeping,

So, the uncles came home after them with hollowed eyes, 
too weary then to shout, 
while Maui uncaring 
pulled a pride filled face 
demanded 
what was so bad that he had done, 
he wanted a normal life, 
grandma deserved her place, a little restfulness
a place to sit and warm herself, to see the sun.

"I need a mother too, he cried, 
someone to care for me",
and "I was Lonely in the soul, 
I did great magic, you yourselves can't do
You've never understood, 
and you don't care for me!"

Tane, rough with fatigue, 
rebuked his son so, quietly, 

"Once in your life, boy,
think of your mother's feelings, 
speak with respect to her at least"

his head snapped up
he stared me in the face
fierce with loathing
spoke from his soul
into my inner heart

"You 
threw 
Me 
away."