Coconut Milk

Sa Moana Poem Number Two

6 Sa Moana Poem Number Two When Dad went to the American War in Vietnam Mom took us home for our first time to the Samoa Islands on Pan Am Airlines Me and my brothers in our JFK suits and crewcuts Mom and my sister in Lady Jackie gloves and dresses The blue and white airplane doors opened to dawn As in rushed green heat of rainforest and warm tropic sea My uncle the doctor drove us in a station wagon with cracked windshield Thru miles of breadfruit, mango, guava, coconut, hibiscus, cacao Everyone from my mother’s village was out to greet us dancing singing Every fale home covered in flowers, vines of flowers twining the church pillars My tamafai sister waited shyly for us among the blooms having arrived earlier Already changed like we would soon be, brown and free, heart wild as a bird in flight My grandfather’s house was the one half western dwelling, a Dr. Seuss house to me Opendoorwaysandwindows,nodoorsorglass,flightofstepsontheoutsideofthebuilding Norailing,wherewerewe?NotinAsia,notinEurope,notinAmericaanymore,inadream Thepartofthemoviethatisincolor,blackandwhitebeforeandafter,nowOz,Atlantis,Mu My great-grandmother, a hundred years old, hard as firewood Leaning into her single piece of cloth wrap, reached down at me, “Kalofae, si kama!” Was all the spark I needed to send me screaming down our muddy village road Where another relative came out of the trees, leg swollen barrel size by elephantiasis Wee queen me running over rotted leaves, past lawns covered that year with frogs Recently imported by a brilliant palagi to eat all the mosquitoes, now mosquitoes and frogs by legions Then I stopped before a gaping hole in the earth lined with red hot stones Above which tall muscular men, black in the shade of the trees, threw in leaves as long as themselves Coming from the corral my grandfather ordered everyone about, and two hogs were brought down the hill I looked them in the eye, as both pua‘a were killed Withwoodenclubsraisedoverheadbybeautifulmen,kirikikiclubscomedowninthunder Was the world split in two, our feast, welcome home, to black out, a song Dear medaysinhospital,onefeverafteranother,familieswaitingonwovenmatsinthehalls In the children’s clinic a box of comic books in American English more familiar than the world outside 7 AndthenIreturnedatlasttojoinmybrothersandsisters,mymother,nowonewithsavages Our pallor once cultivated in European rooms lost, hot chocolate skin in the rain Slidingdownthehillsidesintosplitoildrumboatsdroppedfromthefootbridgeinthestream Shooting thru the village to the sea, white sand, blue waters, dumping pig guts for the wild fish ...