Next day  it was as if they hadn’t quarrelled

(This was to be their pattern)  I asked why

Tupa’i was excluded from our meetings

Too young and a warrior  said Auva’a

Better my General squat on the field

unwise  always erect for war  She said

I suffer insomnia so  for tonight  let’s sing

the darkness away  let’s see if you’re as

good as they say  Vela  She commanded

I feigned ‘the shy poetic modesty’ defined

by Leomalu  the famous Tumua orator  when

he won the poetry tournament centuries before

So She started with a song overripely sweet

that sieved quickly through my memory

when She ended and we pretended

enthusiastic admiration but She said

Sharkshit — I know I’m no singer and poet

You sing  you longwinded short-arsed braggart

Something fast (and sexy) or slow (and modest)?

Slow and wise like your liverless Atua the Lulu

Quickly I sorted through my House of Imagery

found the solo  closed my eyes and sucked it up

from the inventing moa through gullet

to the shaping light of the tongue:

(1) A Definition of Atua

Atua are rooted in the soil bed of the heart

in our terrible dreams that search to vine

us to Vanimonimo where we began

Atua to explain the tides that flow in our blood

and connect us to the weeping moon

and the pain of flesh and bone

the reason  in the wind’s unpredictable curve

and the silence that weaves all things

in the paradigm we must discern

the wherefore in the dragonfly’s midair hover

and in the sungreen depths of the se

eating the new leaf  vein by living vein

Atua are our reflections becalmed in the hurricane’s eye

to blame for our madness  our inability to love

Her flattery was smoother laxative than papaya

and I recited and recited to the humming

mosquitoes and the untold story of

the admiring sparkle in Her eyes

Auva’a drooped into snoreless sleep

opened mouth teethed with my solo

Another:  I’m tied to Falealupo’s skirt

and she’s hooked to my line

like Ti’iti’iatalaga fished up lands so fine

I’m tied fast to Falealupo’s skirt

but I don’t mind because I’m doing fine

with her hooked to my line

When I flattered Her too laxatively  She said

Everyone tells me lies:  they say what

I want to hear to get what they want

That’s the fate of the powerful

You lied (most poetically) to your other patrons

but please don’t do it to me

So deadly a gentle threat I almost crapped

on the tired mat but She saved me again

Make another song  a song to send me

to sleep fit for atua  Not sleep for pigs

(though you found them hyper-raunchy)  Not sleep

for whales and dogs  (Have you tried those?)

(2) Cave of Prophecies

In Nafanua’s Cave of Prophecies

the future is a foetus growing

in the amniotic silence

In Nafanua’s Cave of Prophecies

we are the riddle of Her dreaming

the taulaaitu try to anchor

Some pilgrims come for clues

to a dreaded future and

the riddle to be deciphered

Others to heal deformities to body

and the agaga hungry for silence

or passionate power

And in the Cave of Prophecies

we each find the prophecies

we bring in our groping hands

But because Nafanua is atua All-Seeing

we never think to help Her

unriddle the pain of Her eternity