The Book with Twelve Tales Page 4
especially after it was gone.
Something, therefore, unexpressed,
might just as well be unconceived.
The monkey frowned and scratched his chest.
Was it selfishness that made
him pause upon the fatal act
of choice? Though Chuu was unafraid
to act, he feared the egoistic
dark, the self-reverberations
of the soul, the altruistic
emptiness, the judgement on
one’s deeds deduced from evidence
that, though loosely based upon
the way the world goes, is one’s own
ideas. Oh starfish san, he said,
and wrung his hands, if I had known
that neither God nor anything
that moves or thinks would be with me
tonight upon this beach to bring
some comfort, sign or help to me
I never would have come. He sniffed.
The quiet, blind, advancing sea
washed up his tears. The starfish lay
completely still, or was. The water
ate his feet and hissed away.
What knowledge did he have that might
inform his choice? Well, none. And if
the starfish couldn’t set him right
then things looked grim. This little soul
was in his hands, and only luck
could save it. If he gave the whole
conundrum up, he could be blamed
for Death by Doing Nothing. Hm.
Confused, depressed, annoyed, ashamed,
and doubtful of the world and how
it worked, the monkey turned away.
The sky went cold and livid. Now
he had to choose. He slapped his head.
He loped this way and that. He grunted
squealed and cried. And then he fled.
The sky went starry. Chuu came back.
He picked the starfish up and threw it
far into the sea, whose black
and foamy tongues were licking up
the last high-water’s flotsam. Answer
came there none: no thanks, no tsup,
no lightning, curse, reward or sign
that what he did was right or wrong.
Chuu loped away. A gentle whine
disturbed the moon. Chuu swung his arms
and headed for the twisted trees,
the sweet, familiar fields and farms
of home. The sky went out. The sea
went whispering away. The moon
sailed slowly on. Chuu climbed a tree.
He watched the conscienceless view.
He whispered something thoughtless to
himself. The ricegrass whispered too.
President Kala and Imi the Poet
Wait here, said a woman with an elephant gun.
Imi sat on the rush mat and waited.
Small flies took off and landed sideways
along the smooth white walls.
The sun, shredded through grass slatting,
made lines like bright yellow cotton
along the stamped earth floor.
The afternoon was still and hot.
Birds slept on the lawn. Shadows,
elaborately woven by blinds, slats,
shutters and trees, tipped to one side
and slid, crisscrossing in fretted layers,
along the smooth white ceiling.
Imi waited. She heard each drop
the sprinkler threw amongst the dusty grass.
Follow me. Imi got up and touched her hair.
President Kala’s room was yellow.
There were two flags on sticks, a waterbottle,
a cigarette tin in the shape of the Town Hall,
a fly whisk, one glass, a rug on the wall
and a pair of sunglasses on the floor.
Imi waited.
She heard a dog bark far away and a taxi horn.
President Kala came in with a piece of paper.
She picked up the sunglasses and put them on.
She was wrapped in yellow.
It was the national colour.
She looked at Imi through the dark glasses.
Is this yours? she asked. Imi looked at the poem
printed on a sheet of yellowy paper.
Yes, she said. Then, said President Kala,
you may have to answer some questions.
A passing car window threw a glittered blink
against the waterbottle and was gone.
In lines 4 5 and 6, said President Kala,
you have written – she cleared her throat
er-huhg er-huhg – I would give for my love
Gao Bilia and Mourouro to my love.
Imi smiled. The rug on the wall
looked like another country from space.
Have you not? said President Kala
her sunglasses inkily dark, her turban gleaming.
Yes, said Imi. Er-hugh then I must tell you,
said President Kala leaning forward on her
yellow-cushioned mat, that I own Gao Bilia
and Mourouro and all the rest of this country
and that therefore you cannot give them
to what you please to call your love.
President Kala’s voice rattled like broom pods.
Imi smiled. It is only a theoretical hyperbole, she said.
It could hardly be anything else, said President Kala,
as the places you mention
are not yours to give away.
President Kala shifted her buttocks
on the yellow-cushioned mat.
A fly motored around the top of the waterbottle.
Could it? No, said Imi.
Then why say it? said President Kala.
It is hardly a measure of love to promise something
that everybody knows it would be impossible
for you to give to someone in whom you are surely
trying to engender trust belief and certainty?
The fly spiralled inside the bottleneck,
its little white suckers pricking the glass.
Is it? asked the President. Her sunglasses beamed black.
It is an expression and measure of love,
said Imi staring at her dusty toes,
especially in poetry, to promise the moon and stars
or indeed the whole world to the object of your love.
Imi took a deep breath. The birds shuffled on the lawn.
It is only a gesture whereby
the greatness of one’s feelings
can find expression in writing
by measuring them against
the great things of the world.
President Kala sat back a little.
A shutter creaked so slowly
it sounded like a distant motorbike.
The fact remains, said President Kala,
taking up her flywhisk and thrashing it
at the passing fly which had just
shot out of the bottleneck,
that what you have written is ridiculous, impossible,
impractical and a lie.
Imi frowned.
My poem, said Imi, is a world of feelings and ideas
which is not the truth of the world
of possible things, but of
my own heart, seeking to communicate
its love by means of the objects of the possible world
so that it might be at least in part understood.
President Kala smiled and shone bright yellow.
Then you must not include amongst the unrealities
or other-realities of your feelings
my perfectly real cities
and offer them from your heart
when they are actually in my hands.
President Kala sat back on her yellow-cushioned mat.
The sun slid its patterns crisscross along the floor.
out of the Town Hall tin. The flags hung stickily.
Imi took a deep breath, inhaling
the hot yellow air that helped her.
The cities that I figuratively professed
to give away – My cities, said President Kala,
exhaling smoke at the flywhisk and sucking coffee
from her small yellow cup – Your cities,
continued Imi, bowing her head at the yellow turban
shining in the stripy sunlight, are
the objective correlatives to my emotions,
the picture by which my love is figured forth
and thus is capable of being measured, taken,
assessed and, as I have said, understood.
President Kala poured a glass of water
and offered it to Imi.
We have all been to school, said President Kala.
However when the external facts are given,
which are not only the cities that belong to me
but also the spurious act
of your giving them away,
they are not the formula of your
particular emotion, which is, you say, great love.
How can this emotion be evoked by objects
that remind the public only of me and by an act
that is a politically blasphemous fantasy?
President Kala crushed her cigarette butt
in the Town Hall Square, which was
a kind of ashtray area.
They are the symbols or images of my heart,
said Imi, so they are mine to give, really,
as much as my own heart is mine to give.
President Kala finished her coffee.
She put down the cup. Her sunglasses flashed.
The sun sank and its yellowy lines slipped
across each other and slid along the floor.
President Kala picked up the flywhisk
and swooshed it gently through the sunbeams
and the beautiful orange air.
Tell me then, said President Kala,
what characteristics Mourouro, for example,
shares with your heart, what
indispensable parallels you find between
it and your love that you find the need
to appropriate what is not yours and give it away
as a necessary representative of your love?
Imi heard the birds shifting their feathers
on the lawn. The sprinkler had paused.
Other small noises, like the slow shutter,
came forwards to take its place.
Greatness, said Imi. She finished her water
and put the glass down in front of her feet
on the stamped-earth floor.
Another fly arrived and motored around the rim.
Or newly installed underground waterpipes?
said President Kala raising her canary turban.
Busyness, said Imi, leaning forward
to hold her toes in her fingers.
Yellow council buses? Ceaselessness.
Uncle Sidi’s Famous Soup Café? Profusion.
Your abstractions apply equally well
to the sea, a flock of birds, the desert sand,
anything, indeed, great, busy and ceaseless.
The brick bridge over the Sorab?
President Kala paused for a moment to light
another cigarette from the Town Hall tin.
Imi stared at the reddening crisscross lines
sliding along the smooth yellow ceiling.
President Kala took a deep drag and continued.
The Yellow Mosque, the Central Post Office,
the shacks in Gaba, the Hotel Faro,
the Museum of Folk Life and Customs,
the eleven music shops, Silek the Painter,
the market square, the new police station,
the fire pump, the telephone exchange,
expensive restaurants, a complaining population,
rubbish in the streets, dust, noise, meanness,
extortion, theft, dangerous driving, rape,
housebreaking, unpaid taxes, perversion,
deception, violence, gangland and murder.
She picked up the flywhisk and stood up.
She towered under the smooth yellow ceiling
like a giant canary. Her sunglasses glistened.
She smoked smokily and thrashed the flywhisk
at the sliding crimson sunbeams.
I wouldn’t say that was like love at all.
Your poem, as you please to call it, is banned.
She stamped to the door. The fly in Imi’s glass
spiralled slowly into its glassy depths.
This audience is at an end.
President Kala swapped places with
the woman with an elephant gun, who came in.
Imi stood up and touched her hair.
Follow me.
The sprinkler suddenly threw itself back into life.
The dry grass dodged and reeled
under each hurled drop. Imi heard
a dog bark far away. And the birds
on the lawn raised their heads, took off,
and circled sleepily into the high sky.
Ao the Kiwi
for Bill Manhire
Ao the kiwi left one night
to find the Happy Hunting Ground.
The moon was shining big and round
and filled the bush with creamy light.
The forecast said there might be showers
in Wedderburn, and heavy dew
in northern parts of Oamaru
and Weston in the early hours.
The outlook was especially bleak
for areas of Tekapo,
where early morning falls of snow
would block the road to Cattle Creek.
Temperatures of one or two
would be the norm round Ikawai;
the outlook being cold and dry,
with freezing fog in Timaru.
Ao turned his beady eyes
towards the moon. He stropped his claws
against a knot of windlestraws
and said his one or two goodbyes.
He left his little tree-root nest
and waddled out towards the creek,
pronging huhus with his beak
along the way, and headed west.
The stories of his family tree
were full of courage, plans and death,
of struggling to your dying breath
to seek out Heaven, and be free –
free from being half-extinct
and lurking in the darkling dark
poking round in bits of bark.
Ao watched the moon and blinked.
Somewhere in the golden dawn,
his father’s father always said,
kiwis sunbathed, flew and bred
a million strong on Heaven’s lawn.
Packed in like a swarm of men,
a halo hung on every head,
at last they would be saved, he said,
and never have to hide again.
Ao saw a mighty band
thronging in the golden grass:
this, he knew, would come to pass
if he could find the Promised Land.
He flapped his rudimentary wings,
tapped his claws and flexed his knees.
The moon sailed past the clutching trees
and freed itself from earthly things.
What were generations for?
To prime the perfect hero’s genes,
so he, by their developed means,
might make the world to come secure.
And now amidst the moonlit roots
he waddled forth upon his quest,
leaving youth’s abstracted nest
for more responsible pursuits.
I won’t list all the things he took
&
nbsp; in case you fall asleep – like slugs,
a pouch of crispy huhu bugs,
a hat, a scarf, a map, a book,
a glow-worm lantern, sun-protector,
jandals made of matai bark,
boots for climbing after dark,
a bag of worms, a rear reflector,
beak-cream, claw-file, rope, galoshes,
tins of scroggin, puttees, tea,
a set of folding cutlery,
two two-sided macintoshes,
thermos, tissues, glucose bars,
freeze-dried wasps, a spade, an axe,
a tube of waterproofing wax,
a water-purifier, jars
of Weta Paste (Superior Mix),
a small sombrero for the sun,
twenty good-luck cards, a gun,
a set of lightweight walking-sticks,
and two small skis. The bright moon shone
like someone’s finger through the bush.
He hupped his pack. The gentle swoosh
of pines and piupius waved him on.
But just before he left, he stood
and thought of all the heroes’ quests
before him: all the tales, the tests,
the brave, the true, the right, the good,
the farewells, struggles, welcomes, tears,
the dangers, damage, dreams and dares,
the hopes and nightmares, cheers and scares,
the fights, the follies, foes and fears
etcetera. The slow moon sailed
amongst the stars. He clicked his beak.