Remember telling me that her body was so beautiful

So beautiful it scared you

You said loving her was like trying to put

your arms around the sea

You said loving her was like dipping your

heart in salt water

You said she was a much better woman

than you would ever be

Remember?

- Courtney Sina Meredith

how you doing? like, really?

not how your

kids, parents, partner, other partner, work dynamics, mahi projects, day ones, workmates, studies, fa‘alavelave, church commitments, school fundraisers, sports coaching, fono convening, grants applications, selection
committee/DHB submission drafting, land-dispute settling, matai talanoa

are –

how is you?

in every native

place a pair

of sisters

driven by the sound

of doves

the color of

morning

- Haunani Kay Trask

you are laid out prone unravelled on the fala

i am sitting next to you, crossed legged

facing your body wrapped in your

‘ie lavalava tucked under your armpits, sulu ‘ao‘ao

your hair is piled on top of your head, fa‘apatu

now

breathe

now

breathe

now

breathe

what is the road of our spine

if not the passage of burdens visions dreams

now

breathe

the room is warm enough to

let the coconut oil sleep in silk,

fragrant promise

pour into my cupped palm

moso‘oi carrier scent fills the room

rubbing hands, heat summoning guidance

flight of fofō

now

breathe

and

rise fall

now

breathe

now

breathe

now

breathe

& sea and sky merge

until the horizon is

nothing but an

endless blue line

in every direction,

so that you are sailing,

not on the sea, as you

thought, but in a

perfectly blue, circular

bowl, never leaving

the centre

now

breathe

skin to skin

don’t we touch each other just to

prove we are still here?

sister to sister

paper doll chain

holding the centre

now

breathe

we are

sleeping flying fox

observe the

upside down hear the

invisible city of

moonwalking minds

slippery contortions

cat call you

strong brown (unfeeling) woman

fiapoto / aivalea

lazy fat brown bitch

pa‘umuku / tiapolo

violent aggro afro (circus)

le mafaufau / ulavale

masc beast kalo thighed

vae povi / auleaga

sexual demon dusky maiden

fiapalagi / fiatagata



now breathe


now

breathe


<<     now <<

>>      breathe       >>

stand at this intersection of

common non-sense –

feel the names they call you

shape of the words

their names are their minds

& not ours to hold

say out loud : 

I am.


now

breathe

water knows our name

women are seated at the river

sulu ‘ao‘ao, glory draped on one shoulder

clubbing the dirt from the ofu galuega

wringing the sweat from our brow

ease is our weapon from the water they say

vaitafe, sami, moana tele

we are home from

code switching our tongues

finger twitching under tables

shapeshifting our faces

we say out loud:


I am.


now, Be.

I guess I see myself in her in the same way I see myself

in the twigs on the ground. Organic, snapped, brown.

- Tayi Tibble

i am speaking with the sea

i assume she’s always pleased to see me

though she has no choice

today is the fifth autumn she finds me

perched on driftwood log

expectant, needy, hungry

quixotic seafarer

when the world is not your oyster

try making the sea your palm

open, inviting, resting on your face

try making the sea your friend

listening in on your unspoken thoughts

today she does not offer me her hand

or her shoulder, but

large brown mounds of cud evenly spaced

along the shore

leftovers from days of storms and winds

driftwood, seaweed entangled mess

slopped onto the plate by a tired mother

for her relentless children

i am the spoilt child, scoffing sand

Sāmoan mothers feed their young solids by

chewing it for them, fingerfuls to eager mouths

not regurgitated like bird mamas, but

marionette teeth softening, tenderising

fa‘amama, feed your young

fa‘amamā, cleanse

fa‘a-Mama, like a mother


le moana e, ia e faamamaina a‘u

mother me, cleanse me, feed me, I pray

my Sāmoan mama    waves me to open wide

feeding me truth

detritus from life’s storms

i am eating the fa‘amama

of my sami soothsayer

& i taste the grit of sticks

& seaweed

to fortify my bones

eat, she says,

this organic matter of your need for signs

& wonders

when your palate needs cleansing

& your skin brightening

in a world mad with information

greenwash/ brownwash/ bluewash

don’t let your mind be tie-dyed on the tidal line

close your eyes to see

cup your ears to hear

waves of yesterday

flooding your tomorrow

hope is the thing with

sticks and stones

muck and bones

chewed      they’ll never

break you

a memory:

On a quiet weekend morning, my daughter showed me her journal. For her writing time, she copied animal facts from Wikipedia. The first was about te wheke, the octopus. Lisa Reihana’s giant Te-Wheke-A-Muturangi was alive in the Whairepo Lagoon and my daughter was eager to know more. Wikipedia facts to her were as bright as Te Wheke’s spots, far-reaching as his tentacles. Reading the facts in her handwriting had a similar effect on me. Her careful lettering was a Yayoi Kusama filter: fact and imagination mingled, bland terms became playful spots and lines; doors of possibility flung open. My daughter’s writing insisted the biology and the pūrākau of Te Wheke were equally true.

another:

I remember an elder from our church family. She wore the tualima, which by her 80s had faded to green mottled spots and lines from her wrist to fingers. The patterns remained, washed over and over by migration and movement. My mum was close to her, and I would often sneak next to them as they were sharing giggles and stories. I watched the lo‘omatua’s tualima gesticulate as her frail voice wavered in her elegant gagana Sāmoa. Green fish dancing along the river contours of her beautiful hand, current waves flowing to the rhythm of their sonorous conversation. She received the tatau as fofō, as part of a healing ritual, and as signifier of high-ranking status as taupou. The old ways have gone, she lamented, no one received the tatau in this way any longer. I imagined the green fish flying from her hand to mine, to another, then another. I saw rapids of movement and migration, torrents of green fish under gleaming stars, leaping as if trying to fly through constellations.

adornment:

The moulding of my self should have been a simple science, like making concrete: cement of a stable home, sand of present parents, gravel of Western knowledge, water of belonging in fa‘aSāmoa. But there was an added wisdom in that mixer: knowing that the women in my family line passed down; and my father’s mind planted in mine. This wisdom was stirred when I learnt about the colonisation of Moana peoples, of tangata whenua, and abroad. It helped me understand why the nation-state New Zealand was not one I identified with. I studied politics – the narrative of power – and law – the poetry of regulating human behaviour – and the rocks of revelation stacked up. By design, New Zealand society prospered at the cost of our tangata whenua ‘āiga. My resolve hardened to find a way to live in solidarity with tangata whenua, and the whenua itself.

I travelled around the motu, collecting shells and threading an ula, a garland, to remember where I had walked, where I had put my hand to the whenua to listen. For a long time, this ula was so heavy I could not speak. My imagination fell silent.

I needed to grow a backbone. My parents were flummoxed and deeply hurt, my ‘āiga bemused. I searched for a language to explain myself, why I needed an alternative pathway to the one they had paid so dearly for. Where every action in my life had been made with the backing of a small nation of ‘āiga, the journey of decolonising my life and contents was very much a solo affair.

Throughout this journey, images of backbone recurred: strength, holding beams needed to maintain a structure’s integrity. I was rebuilding my inner integrity, vertebrae by vertebrae. I learnt how to raise children, how to grow food – resonant metaphors of r/evolution. I found an ecosystem of resistance. Friends from across the motu shared their iwi stories. As a gardening friend promised – while he taught me how to mulch, compost, sow – my spine strengthened, even if my throat was closed.

Ten years passed. Despite finding a community of like-minded people, the ula tightened. Now that I had found a proverbial home, what could I offer?

One day, my view panned out as I considered the whenua I had greeted from north to south. If our many islands across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa are the spine of our great watery continent, then she carries me. There is no weight around my neck except my strange selfish notion that seeing wrongs meant that I needed to fix them – as if I can carry the seas to the sun. Generations of indigenous movements survive through collective strength, collective vision. I needed to reframe my idea of collective action.

I removed the ula, placed it along the shore. I saw the constellations of the many elders who spoke to the impossible. A new learning occurred as I relented to the healing hands of my elders. The healing love of my daughter. Their eyes, their knowing, their faith.

I recalled Matua Moana showing us how to reframe the building we undertake – rebuilding of hearts, minds, stories, systems – the seemingly impossible. Restoration, he said, is the ethic that guides us to the stories sown in the whenua. Therein lie the stories of imagination and fact. I put my palm to the whenua, I heard the waves of the moana tele. They said,

courage is simply the deep breath you take before a new beginning.

teu le vā, adorn the relational space –

with y/our self,

with y/our memory,

with y/our seeing,

with y/our peoples.


now, Speak.