Vela’s fame was instant on Alopese’s defeat
Every Tama’aiga wanted him as personal historian
(We hunger after chroniclers who mirror our vanity
and grow fatly opulent on the rewards
our vanities provide them)
Thin yaw-footed neglected all his youth
Vela knew a fat offer when the most paramount
of Tama’aiga the Tuimanu’a made it
As was customary Vela refused it at first
but not too adamantly
Tama’aiga don’t beg in public so Tuimanu’a
invited Vela into his fale and on His knees
offered him His favourite wife (out of twenty)
Alopese’s harem and title — after all he was
now Manu’an with Alopese’s mana
Yet unwise in the world’s bartering
Vela refused his patron’s favourite and Alopese’s
identity but accepted the envied post of chronicler
in a solo he composed on the spot
to inflate his patron’s already bloated ego
(I’ve not been able to find that solo
and couldn’t persuade Vela to recite it
to me ‘I’m now so ashamed of
insisting ‘I sold my integrity for material comfort’)
In a fale in the shadow of Foafoalagi
the Sacred PalmGrove heart of his patron’s compound
Vela awaited a sexual abundance but no one dared
intrude after the Tuimanu’a declared him tapu
too sacred even for women’s fondling
His servants haggard old matai
and spies followed him everywhere scraping up
his sacred shit so no one could use it for sorcery
A celibate caged in his sacredness
Not a fuckable creature in sight
Only the Tuimanu’a and His taulaaitu
(shrivelled like ancient fau) visited
Boring old men brewing war and Atuahood
preparing Vela to record their
glorious vanity
So out of his trapped nights he fished
the Lulu to talk with: ‘The quest for power drives
men mad so escape now’ Lulu warned ‘Don’t forget
you’re anchored in flesh’ ‘But what use is the anchor
if I can’t relieve it of lust? I’m sick of dry hand-jobs’
‘War is a feast a feeding of kings the sport
of atua and aristocracy’ said the Tuimanu’a
and a war Vela’s first interrupted
his dry monotony of hand
A war which he called:
This war was Vela’s first assignment
as chronicler but let’s pause here —
we’re getting ahead of our tale — and return
to that war’s source: Tuimanu’a Fa’aola
Spiritual Overlord Son of Tagaloaalagi - with - the - Intestine
now an old body refusing to shrink
hurling His young warriors into Saveasi’uleo’s
insatiable gob and gobbling up
teenage wives to keep death at bay
(Power is our sweetest aphrodisiac)
The Tuimanu’a’s sixtieth war planned and executed
Each war chronicled to be re-enjoyed
in the telling and the retelling
and in that giddy spiral He’d be
remembered He hoped forever
Being atua He never fought in the wars
Being indispensible He had to be protected
(Let the dispensible be Saveasi’uleo’s fodder)
Tuimanu’a Fa’aola Grand Director
of the Drama and the Feeding
And here’s how Vela recorded
that war for his patron’s vanity:
The hour was right Our Lord and taulaaitu
have consulted our atua through Foafoalagi
the Sacred Conch and the omens in the air
earth wind and sky were on our side
To war! To war!
For seven anae seasons our troops
had trained under our Lord’s expert command
their bodies incredible in muscle and speed
Such ferocious beauty is ready to test Saveasi’uleo
To war! To war!
In the bay still as the waters of Vaiola our Fleet
of war alia were giant tanifa loaded with
warriors weaponry and our atua’s blessings
eager for war ready for the sacrifice
To war! To war!
Our Lord was ready ‘Lift Him up Bear Him
to His seat of victory! His shadow will melt
our enemy away like dew! His magic
club the Uluta’eto will feast on their skulls’
To war! To war!
Into Safele Bay we broke like black tanifa
swarming onto the beach and the sleeping
enemy the Aiga Safele while our Lord
watched from his alia
To war! To war!
The Safele army was foolishly defiant
They stood their ground
Their women and children also willing to die
but our courageous warriors couldn’t
be denied as they advanced
‘Stab Parry Cut Weave Turn!’
‘Stab Parry Cut Weave Turn!’
We broke their solid wall
Cut their troops into scatters
we surrounded clubbed and speared
Our warriors so beautiful in their erect nakedness
in their oiled tatau glistening
‘Stab Parry Cut Weave Turn!’
Our Lord’s strategy deadly correct
‘Pursue Pursue Club Cut!’
‘No one must escape they must pay!’ our Lord
had commanded And now from His alia
He smiled to witness his plan succeeding
Saw the enemy scattering falling
Heard the piercing cries of their dying
He wept in victory shouted to the La:
‘See again the mana of your most humble servant
To you I dedicate this glorious victory!’
To our supreme Tagaloaalagi He offered
the head of Safele’s leading ali’i
When He strode ashore the enemy grovelled
for mercy in their dirt
Being a true aristocrat He cut the women’s
and children’s bonds
For the men He ordered the ultimate price
In Safele’s malae a pit was dug
filled with logs and set ablaze
The conquered warriors were clubbed and thrown in
to become sizzling smoke the ravenous La
and our atua swallowed for breath
Our merciful Lord Tuimanu’a Fa’aola
wept to see such a beautiful sight
How He wept to witness such courageous death!
The War of the Naked Morning will always
be remembered as our Lord’s most glorious victory
Our Lord is the mightiest of Lords
War is His game War is His sport
May the atua bless Him forever
May They feed His mana with blood
Long live Lord Tuimanu’a Fa’aola!
Immediately after Vela recited to me that chronicle
he wanted me to record how he really felt:
The War Dead walk they walk like weightless
mountains across the night bay
The stars are white pua discarded over
the black curving waters
The War Dead my Dead walk
They walk and the unquiet waters wince
under their footsteps that cut
wounds that spark briefly
like fireflies and drown
My War Dead walk the bay
Seven weeks since the war ended
Seven weeks of their pacing my dreams
Seven weeks of their refusing to
turn west to Falealupo and the Fafā
I’m bursting with their evil load
My days have been incessant crapping
to evacuate them and I’m melting away
in foulness my servants scrape up and hide
(Poor stinging arsehole oozing blood)
(I crap and piss and crap to stay alive)
My War Dead walk held up by the forgiving sea
The spears jab and fly again again
and the dead women break in flowing crimson
trying to protect their helpless children
from spear and club that ended their future
and my lies to flatter my heartless Lord
and patron …
Vela wept I didn’t know how to console
him I waited for his War Dead to release him
waited until he was ready ‘I think you and Palagi call it
a “nervous breakdown”’ he continued
‘To try to heal I fled into the mountains’
Mountains wouldn’t be
mountains without the valleys ravines
and sea level they rise up from
They are
the rising high of sight propped up by stone
earth and sky
They can’t be
any other thing (and they know it)
They are
the eyes of the earth gazing out
gazing inwards contemplating the future
on the horizon line and in the depths
of the whirling retina
These mountains the mountains of Ta’u are
locked arm to arm blood to blood
and live in one another’s thoughts
They hum
like spinning tops or Maui’s endlessly
inventing mind on fine mornings
when the mist lifts and the horizons open
to the promise of what may be
They creak and crack
like old āoa trees as they dry in the sun
and the river dives and digs
for its roots and
fat pigeons nibble the day away on
the sweet black berries of moso’oi and
in cold rock pools atua wash off
the night’s stale smell of sex and perfume
their twisting hair with laumaile leaves and
for dear life trees and creeper cling onto
sharp slope and cliff and the air
is thick with long messages of death
in the falling
They whisper together in the evenings
in talk only they can hear
as the dark turns all languages
into one shape of the tongue and
the ravenous flyingfox chases
the ripe-papaya moon and
comic aitu squeal in the waterfall
They sleep best
on stormy nights when they can’t hear
one another’s sleep chatter
and the wind massages their aching spines
with tender hands
These mountains the mountains of Ta’u are
above the violence of arrogant men
They now fit my eyes and heart exactly
like a calm river snug in the hand
of its bed
I am of their rising
and they of mine
These mountains the mountains of Ta’u
Locked locked into the amazed stillness of morning
eyes search for river bends not there
nostrils catch the smell of soft lingering rain
that like a lover’s embrace will make
the mountains purr all day
The finagalo wakes fingers the scope of skull
and the agaga locked in amazement
through its pores the rain will wash
cool clean healing
Tagaloa’s creative breath
Last night in a dream I was Atua Pua’a
rampaging through the forest of Ta’u
dripping member wildly thick and erect
to fuck the darkness tree air creeper
earth anything
Woke to my flaccid old age
free of Atua Pua’a
We feed best on words hatched warmly in the forgiving agaga
on songs spun like strong sinnet that fasten each limb
to limb of fale to make whole no storms can break apart
on wisdom shaped by the swift-tongued blood
purged of blind vanity rage and pride
This I learned in the mountains of Ta’u
as I watched my thoughts weave
vine ladders to rescue loto from
the white pit of madness the ti’otala picked
at with its blue beak unafraid
This I learned as I groped each precarious day
across the slim vine stretched from mountain peak
to peak over the whining valleys
where the dead atua are buried
but can’t be silent
This I learned
in the mountains of Ta’u
Aside Two
We don’t know when Vela broke
from the mountains’ spell or whether he returned
to the Tuimanu’a
But in a strange solo of his
middle years about assassination
is this verse:
Watched the flyingfox ease
into the Tuimanu’a’s lair
Watched it ease its long spear claw
into the ear of the sleeping Atua
who deserved to die
Did Vela the flyingfox assassinate his patron
who according to oral history died mysteriously
in his sleep?
(In those days assassins sometimes used
sharpened coconut ribs to stab through
the ears into the brains of their sleeping victims)