I try to give them the scene: Crete under starlight,
our troops moving to attack, the flash and thud of a mine
and their son horribly wounded. ‘Finish it, Major,’
he says in pain – the worst moment of my life.
Those mines were ours and laid without my orders.
The stone scarps and caverns echoed his moaning.
At any moment an enemy unit might come
and abort our mission. I drew my revolver …
The Tribe’s elders treat me with grave respect
but the makutu stands. I am to suffer their curse,
I and my children’s children, not for his death
but because I fired at the head. The head is sacred.
Down the long road that’s fringed with toetoe and flax
a big surf booms like guns. These sad bronze Popes
have delivered their kind of excommunication
on a Pakeha soldier. Absurdly, I salute them.
The parents say goodbye. Do they weep for their son,
or for the one who answered to his last request?
Why should I fear? I was cursed before I came here.
We are all cursed. I merely pulled the trigger.