Rivering: The Poetry of Daphne Marlatt

Years ago

Years Ago (from The Gull, Act I) KURI (sung poem, rhythm not matched with drum beats) JI: years ago, a bride she came across the sea leaving the boats of Mio, her parents’ temple home leaving a prayer at the Dragon-God Shrine at Kobe she said goodbye SASHI (recitation, sung) WAKI: passing Cape Hinomisaki JI: with wet sleeves she turned from the headland she knew, gazing instead at the promise held in her hand, a small photo of her husband-to-be WAKI: young, firm of body JI: and the words he sent a river teeming with fish, at its mouth a village newly-built, wide-open sky – WAKI: a future for her shining there SHITE (in Japanese): I saw my future shining just ahead SHITE slips off cloak and rises. JI: she saw her future shining there The Poetry of Daphne Marlatt / 43 KUSE (core narrative, song matched with drum beats accompanied by dance) SHITE stands on bridgeway, raising sleeve-wings, moves onstage and begins to dance slowly, then speeds up after she sings her single line below. JI: only a dream as things turned out he was older than his photo, and the place itself a wild estuary the winter winds keened through thin walls of TB huts, the strikes, the babies, debt an endless round he pulled us from to own his boat, his net, his home at last Uchikiri as Shite dances. but there were taunts and threats and then the war – they took our boats, our homes our cars we’d worked so hard for – all lost, seized and sold to pay for our keep as “enemy aliens” – condemned, families split and sent from the coast to camps faraway, in icy crowded huts and ghost town rooms we were penned up in the frozen mountains. 44 / Rivering SHITE (in Japanese): fury scalds my wings remembering JI: how gulled we were, her cry her splash in the spray of China Hat’s seething storm – During the following, SHITE moves to bridgeway, turns to face standing WAKI and WAKITSURE, swoops towards them, turns again, and moves down bridgeway. JI: strange, her story resembles our mother’s – wait, he calls, who are you? as she lifts drenched wings torn ragged in the round of migration only a gull’s shriek beats the air – fool Mio-birds, go home! go home! On the last line SHITE raises a “wing.” Brief and piercing Nôkan flute solo as SHITE exits rapidly. JI: mirage of the wind, rain fury, no woman after all, but a gull, a gull – yet she did speak. The Poetry of Daphne Marlatt / 45 ...