once upon a time: Bad war

once upon a time: Bad war: I do not know how many days; I do not know how many nights. Heimiti offers her bed to me and all the day she does what she has to do. I am t...

Bad war

I do not know how many days; I do not know how many nights. Heimiti offers her bed to me and all the day she does what she has to do. I am tired of living; I think of my wife, my son, my daughters, and the tears come while looking at the river slipping by towards the ocean. Sometimes, when the sky is covered at the rain season, I read in the cloudburst the sorrow of my mother, the silence of my father. I am “fiu”, as say Maoris. Wakatiki stay with me, refusing to go to school. And when by miracle he agrees he find always something to do in order to be expulsed. We climb in the bush, by the track, behind the fare, until the marae absorbed under the trees. While I remain move less, with the broad stone of the sacrifices in my back, he tracks the insects, the “tupopo” like he says. I can remain hours, without any image, without any thought, man-cloud which lets ravel the landscape in front of him. When Wakatiki is hungry he rises along the trunk of a papaw tree, takes a fruit, and eats it, sitting on the ground. I came here to cry, in the blue of the lagoons, the prodigality of the fruits, the rich smell of the flowers of tiara, and over the odorous breast of Heimiti. And when the tears do not run on my face, they run inside in silence. All is stopped however. Hiro, the husband of Heimiti died in the mountains of Afghanistan. Wakatiki is now my son. Something retains me, which is connected with the heart of the warriors of which I am not any more. Perhaps I wait to meet Kuwatawata, the guard of Tatau O te Po? Is this the price to be paid for my years of slaughters, to turn over to the light and to protect my children from the higher world? Ao marama and Ao turoa? I do not have any more will; I do not know anything about what we call a man, of what can be a man. All that belongs to a forgotten world, who knew the rules and the ritual to enter and leave the war. For me the last man, that which believed in the human laws, died on the last battle field, in the last butchery which found me quivering the lips when I exploded the head of my enemy. Near this man, a pulp of woman and children. When I say “battle field” I speak about a village perched in the mountain, about thin harvests and children with black eyes.

Heimiti returned this evening by saying to me that papers would be soon ready and that I am on the point of leaving with the child, like it was decided by her dead husband.

The words are obscure lamps, when they light it is always with shade. This remote shore, this black pearl lost in the middle of the ocean, still more involves me towards my darkness. The blue of the lagoons is invisible for me, the fluidity of the paréos escapes to me. Even if I hate definitely the sound of the war, I find violence hidden deep in me. Curious slope which, at the approach of the light, the beauty, childhood, of the pure wave, starts to lean like blood at the edge of the wound, preceding the caress, the gift, the word to wish only chaos, the vacuum, fire, the smiling immobility of the body in its posture of emptied flesh of conscience. Entire fear cramps me, my fist is tightened and I do not know by which miracle it ends up striking only my leg. “The child is the father of the man”. Rather to crawl in mud, to cling to the roots under the pouring rain, the knife between the teeth, the smeared face of paintings. Rather nothing.I am lengthened on the ground. The fever holds me nailed, painful. “The child is the death of the man. » I am delirious and hustle the words which are funeral boats “the woman is the death of the man”. By intermittency I hear the rain tumbling down on the roof, in anger and devastating. An immense woman is held near me. When she laughs it is a black rain she pours in my eyes. She speaks and the words run: “When Maui tried to assassinate Hine nui te Po, goddess of death, he left for the underground world accompanied by a succession of birds of various species. He intended to benefit from its sleep to penetrate her body by the vagina and to leave by the mouth after to have divided her heart. Before leaving, Maui recommended to his winged companions not to make noise, to avoid awaking the goddess, but when he passed the head in the vagina of Hine nui te Po, the fantail found the spectacle so funny that it was taken of an irrepressible laughter… The surprised goddess closed again her thighs and Maui perishes strangled! It is since the demigod was choked by the great lady of the night that death exists in this world, the death personified by Aitua…” strangled Man, emasculation… death preceding the childbirth… “Hine titama, mother of Hine nui te Po, girl itself of Tane his father, leaves Tane giving him the title of matua which means the relative, the father, the first, most important, but indicates also the placenta, the hull of the dugout and the body of the water-bottle, as if it gave up the female creativity with the sovereign masculine. ”  I debates, I choke, my stomach is a cauldron which burns and twists. And then all is calmed, Heimiti sponges my face and murmurs “it is the dengue”. I am in a vast cave surrounded by darker cavities where shades lie with face of skeleton rest. Water drips of the vault, thick dew of darkness. An irrepressible force curves my neck, pushing my head to the transparent puddle pools in which eyes of women are reflected. My sex became tiny, my mouth dry… curved, painful of the shoulders and of the belly, I perceive hardly the warriors who ravel raising their wounds, their stubs, their blacks faces painted in blue. I go further between the walls which are tightened, in the shade which suck my eyes, in the night which devours my body. Lips and nails touch me, teeth seek to bite me, hairs are rolled up around my members, and I want to pass. Why the face of the war, sublimation of death, would be female?“It is your child now”.I do not know how much time I remained thus confined to bed, between days and nightmares. One morning, Heimiti played with my sex while speaking with low voice. “The men stole the secrecy of the women, and the women became accessory, but these times are finished. I will follow the word of Hiro and you will honour it, but initially you will make me a child. I know what you will say, your sex died, it does not react more. It is nothing; you just have to go down low in the cave from your body, in order to find the root of your life. ” She made me drink, she massed me, and my head opened with the lapse of memory. I sank in a deep sleep while the strength of life awoke…

Nevermore

Nevermore

Where did he go?

Old, blind and deaf

In winter cold, two night ago

Did he find the sweetness of death?

Did he close his eyes with sparkles of ice?

I didn’t know

I am blind, deaf and dumb

No word

Only the whispering winter of the nevermore…

sparkles

One day, on your way, following the river

Lonely day, sunny day, gone away for ever

Listening to the wind and the words never heard

Following the river and the song of a bird

Remember the sparkles, the sparkles of your life

The castle of your dreams in the stream of your life

Step by step, day after day, and walking through the trees

Feel the butterflies of memories, and don’t stay on your knees

Even if your heart is crying, even if your spirit is going mad

Even if you loose the path, after the death of your dad

Remember the sparkles, the sparkles of his life

The castle of all dreams in the stream of the life

And the shadow of your love along the mourning streets

Will follow you until you find the kindness of all treats

At the top of the hill where tears and rain will make a spring

While in deep silence you will find the way to sing

Remember the sparkles, the sparkles of the life

The castle of his dreams in the stream of your life