Path of Darkness I
Apologia
I left the story as Hine
left Tane, having finally understood what had lain inside all along: Who
her father was. In one of these books of mine, I read these words. "She
resolved at once to leave the world of light, Te Ao, and retire to Te Po,
the world below.
'O Tane, it is clear
to me now,' she said. 'It is you who have brought me to this shame. I shall
go and take refuge with my grandmother, Papa. The path I take shall be
laid down for all time as the path to the underworld and I shall live there
for ever'."
I've played with the identity
of Hine, for several reasons. According to this particular version of the
tale, she is not Hine ahu one, Earth-born maid, but her daughter Hine Titama,
the Dawn Maiden. Whatever, these poems are about her becoming Hine nui
te Po, Great Hine of the Night.
As some cultures have different
names for sun, or moon, as they appear at their rising, height, falling
and disappearance, so it seems to me I
have some justification
for this, as I have in identifying Her with Earth and Fire, and perhaps
even, with each one of us.
The story however, is far
from over even after this batch. One doesn't become the Heart of Darkness
in one fell swoop, or even in one long drawn out journey. The road goes
ever on and on.
So now, if you will, read
on..
Journey
Worlds within worlds, mile within mile
I walked the long journey, inwardly, outwardly
mile after mile in blank anguish, twistingly.
Not one inch did I travel
I had not walked before
within touch of love or greeted
each stump and twig once cheerily
'this where the weta dwells, here
where the kingfisher stood'
How may we measure such a path? Say
I trod path of the canoe as it slid through the bush
through the minds sleeping, in the sacred village
tagged for the doom bringer,
wake sigh through the leaf-fall loam
Would you know then? Journey's end
sings back on the path, like a
premonition, a slight chill on the sun.
Say
I trod the spiral down - but that's too
quiet and still for a mind
that thrashed over and over again this
one last word and that
over and over again
I'm convinced now
that's where old age starts
and ends. Locked in one long slow
agony of relived old seeming,
endlessly endlessly rocking
on the pivot of old pain,
word, one word or two
repeated waiata or a little
twig looping the same three
sing-song notes of the willow rill
endlessly, mindlessly
o no ono ohno oh no o no
<Father!>
o
godogodogodogod
<I didn't understand!>
into the forest, echoing,
and unreceived
and falling,
falling,
falling,
onto deaf ears, my own.
but I do. but i understand too well
when I stop,
when I stop the prayer wheel words that keep me
moving, walking, moving - understand
too well, and it seems to me like
a lifetime treading water
when I might have tried to
put my foot down
anytime, jarred
my knees at the short shelf
sea floor,
rock, and been
buffeted by sting rays
too far
into shore.
How long can it take
to become
the joyful mother of the sons of death
who walk so far from their source
their feet bled as they come to you?
say
I missed my sons
how
could I
leave
my sons?
my hands fluttered
endlessly
helpless with love
about their long edged
faces in my mind,
called them from the
aching blow
under my rib
caged,
would jump up in the night
whence i lay, bracken warm
wondered why the stars
seemed far away and cliché still:
cry out their names and memories
etch their face's look
upon my drawn breast,
touch their hunger
with the warm smell
of new bread and milk
and call me
heartless
hard
unfeeling, yet.
How long can it take to become
Mother of Darkness,
Death?
no time at all.
I walk in
between the lowering of a lash
and the opening of an eye
I am the exhalation of a breath
with no inflowing sigh.
-o-
Through all the beauty and the loam of waiting bush
I walked with bare nod and snort of laughter.
Eye laid flat upon the long-familiar dear-held loves
with not one twitch of recognition following the sight
Walked the vast and passionless waste of scrub,
breath made bleak, inhaled whistle under lonely stars,
invented the song of ghosts for company
the rasp of the last breath bullying the rib
demanding air
my father's daughter
aie...
-o-
Tristan and Lancelot went mad
and the Emperor of Babylon ate grass
like an ox, but my mind
took no leave, released
nothing into the bloodstream of insanity
sea-washed my hair, matted the dry leaves
and my neck sometime bowed I went:
looked wild enough,
but under it all
the heart was silent
tamed
while the mind pumped on
and on
clinically
anal it ic ly
-o-
To hear them talk you'ld think
she went calmly,
gently
into the eye of God
as one who, with bad news
wades through a children's party
eyeing the hostess
meaningly
but I fell
under the milling feet of my children
drowned in the buffets of a simple game,
a moment's thoughtless ness..
each untraced path
and every step in life,
taken at the full as at the ebb
death steps with you. She walks it
blow by blow and breath by breath
pleasure by pleasure,
stores it,
along with the spring smoothness
of your brow
till in the end
only such mana as you have
will keep you standing
upright and alone
and death herself does share your bed
blue lidded like a stone.
Don't think to speak of it's
the same
as feeling.
when flint turns
and splits your foot
I'll hold your hand
but I can't mend it
know
Death is no sudden visitor
severing the end of thread
but every minute, every breath
wheel, world, mile,
trims something vital
off from the mother
lode,
off from the root.
She walks
with us
sounds mind depth eye to eye
luminous
like pools of pity
brimmingly.
o
and i
who want so very much
to die, become instead
a passer by
and all that moved me,
branch or fern
I do brush by
wind cries and moans,
wind flings itself
child pummelling
my inner blankness
misfits longing
for caressing hand
plucks at a sharing,
secret, merry smile
over a child's shoulder
meteing mine..
I miss you love
and cannot cry
