DAVID HOWARD - PART FIVE

TO SING THROUGH STONE: work in progress

5    Hine-nui-te-po

Ah Sing, your songs will hover like wild geese
    Over a tidal bore: they’ll land
On the dark lake of memory, its mirror
    Showing up dead stars. A rainbow
Changes with every step, you never see
        The same rainbow

Twice. So you’ll never get to where you were
    With Tiriata. I learnt this
After I slept with my father, spreading his seed
    As I ran: you cannot return
To first love. If a thing grows, its shadow
        Grows larger still.

Infernal cartography has one landmark:
    The heart. It changes for us all
And changes all of us; it cannot be
    Fixed, the antechambers fill up
With blood, the same blood that forces you
        To sing through stone.