Wendt - From Manoa to a Ponsonby Garden

ALBERT WENDT For Taulapapa Hans and Flora Wendt.
And, again, for Reina.
Thank you for your alofa and agalelei. Since we moved into Mnoa Ive not wanted to escape the Koolau at the head of the valley They rise as high as atua as profound as their bodies Theyve been here since Pele fished these fecund islands out of Her fire and gifted them the songs of birth and lamentation Every day I stand on our front veranda and on acid-free paper try and catch their constant changing as the sun tattoos its face across their backs Some mornings they turn into tongue less mist my pencil cant voice or map Some afternoons they swallow the dark rain and dare me to record that on the page What happens to them on a still and cloudless day? Will I be able to sight Pele Who made them? If I reach up into the skys head will I be able to pull out the Koolaus incendiary genealogy? At night when Im not alert they grow long limbs and crawl down the slopes of my dreams and out over the front veranda to the frightened stars Yesterday Noel our neighbours nine year-old son came for the third day and watched me drawing the Koolau Dont you get bored doing that? he asked Not if your life depended on it! I replied And realised I meant it There are other mountains in my life: Vaea who turned to weeping stone as he waited for his beloved Apaula to return and who now props up the fading legend of Stevenson to his wide and starry sky and reality-TV tourists hunting for treasure islands Mauga-o-Fetu near the Faf at Tufutafoe at the end of the world where meticulous priests gathered to unravel sunsets and the flights of stars that determine our paths to Pulotu or into the unexplored geography of the agaga Taranaki Who witnessed Te Whitis fearless stand at Parihaka against the settlers avaricious laws and guns Who watched them being evicted and driven eventually from their lands but not from the defiant struggle their descendants continue today forever until victory The Koolau watched the first people settle in the valley The Kanaka Maoli planted their ancestor the Kalo in the mud of the stream and swamps and later in the terraced loi they constructed Their ancestor fed on the valleys black blood They fed on the ancestor and flourished for generations Recently their heiau on the western slopes was restored The restorers tried to trace the peoples descendants in the valley They found none to bless the heiaus re-opening On a Saturday morning as immaculate as Peles mana we stood in the heiau in their welcoming presence that stretched across the valley and up into the mountains where their kapa-wrapped bones are hidden The Koolau has seen it all I too will go eventually with my mountains wrapped up in acid-free drawings that sing of these glorious mountains and the first Kanaka Maoli who named and loved them forever December 2004January 2005 What is this centre thing that holds me to my life? This mauli the cool Mnoa evening makes me contemplate? Is it like the thin sliver of light I will remember after the last sunset slips off the Koolau? Is it like the just-there acidy taste of anti-cholesterol that promises a life after death without fat? Is it like the owls sonar flight in the fearless dark though it doesnt know it is flying? Is it like the desire of grass to be lush in the Mnoa rains? Or the compulsive search by water for its apt shape? Is it something you can crawl out off and bequeath to another creature which needs a shell from predators? Is it the memory of the sea womb out of which you surfaced into the despair of the light? Is it an invisible second skeleton of bone your grandchildren will wear like a uniform? Can you smoke it like pakall and talk the air into giving up its secret elixirs? And is it 10 dollars a joint? Can you smell it? And if you can what does it smell like? Is it the blood odour of the amniotic tide that cauled you? Or that of hot porridge on a freezing morning at boarding school? Or do you prefer it to be the smell of dead flowers? Frangipani? Mosooi? Roses? Or fresh bread as the morning opens your house? What about the stench of unwashed feet? Or an aunts noiseless fart as she pretends all is well with her life? If you can touch it what do you prefer it to feel like? The long slick clinging feel of the black Vaip mud out of which you have eased? What about the whole weave of your lovers skin as you burn? Or the searching feel of your fathers Sunday sermons at Malie that woke you to the mana of words? Or the stinging bite of your grandmothers salu on your legs? What about the large embrace of her arms afterwards? If you could taste it would it be like a hotdog with mustard onions and a lot of hope? A double cheeseburger with a lot of hope but without onions and mustard? Pork sapasui oka faalifu kalo palusami koko alaisa or fries? What about the taste of Marmite or Weet-Bix? (I bet only Kiwis know those!) Or the taste of hot fishnchips on a Friday night in Ponsonby? Yes this centre thing that holds even river stones to their shape and shine that holds the owl aloft in the dark as it targets the hunger in its stride that is the rage and sparkle in my grandchildrens eyes holds me true and upright to the path of my life I did not buy or ask for it It came with me and wont let me forget it until it runs out I walk in her wake almost every morning and afternoon along the Mnoa valley from home and back after work In her slipstream shielded from the wind and the future I walk in the perfume that changes from day to day in the mornings with our backs to the Koolau in the afternoons heading into the last light as it slithers across the range into the west She struts at a pace my bad left knee and inclination wont allow me to keep up with And when I complain she says You just hate a woman walking ahead of you No I hate talking to the back of your head Im the Atua of Thunder she reminds me when my pretensions as a Smoan aristocrat get out of hand So kill my enemies for me I demand Okay Ill send storms and lightning to drown and cinderise them Do it now I beg I cant Ive got too much breeding to act like that (How do you cure contradictions like hers?) She loves Bob Dylan the Prophet of Bourgeois Doom And this morning I swam in his lyrics as she sang: Sweet Melinda the peasants call her the goddess of gloomShe speaks good EnglishAnd she invites you up into her roomshe takes your voiceAnd leaves you howling at the moon Yes for over a year Ive cruised in her perfumed wake protected from threats Shell take the first shot or hit in an ambush And if a car or bike runs headlong into us my Atua of Thunder with the aristocratic breeding will sacrifice her body to save me Nearly always she wears her favourite red sandals as she like Star Trek forges boldly ahead singing Dylan songs and me wanting to howl at the Hawaiian moon Her youngest grandson is called Tahu Ptiki after the heroic founding father of their Ki Tahu tribe He arrived last Saturday to spend the school holidays with us He and his two brothers are in Wesley College boarding school Before he arrived she cleaned and ordered our apartment to suit him She bought an orchid lei which we took to the airport and garlanded him with Their little incessant quarrels started in the car on our way back Ever since Ive known them that seems to be the way: she correcting the way he dresses eats slouches speaks and wont behave like his aristocratic namesake and he grunting and refusing to bend Since we last saw him at Xmas he has stretched into a beanpole with long arms and legs a baby beard and a voice that squeaks and growls in a language I can barely understand Hawaii has an eternally warm climate and sea but he chooses to play violent computer games or watch fantasy adventures and quests And that drives her teeth out of whack That school doesnt teach them proper manners and etiquette like St Marys in Stratford where I went she complains It doesnt even teach them to read and appreciate books! Theyre too bloody busy turning them into rugby players and raving Methodists! On Monday night when Tahu Robert Temuera and I sat down to watch an NPC match on TV she retreated into the sullen bedroom to read I try and keep out of their way though at times I want to shout: Hey guys givus a break from that quarrelling rap! But I dont because whenever theyre together thats how it is And you cant ever doubt the aroha between them He flies back on Thursday and she wont have anyone to quarrel lovingly with