POSTCARDS FROM KANAKY.(Poem)

We sweat and cry salt water, so we know that the ocean is really in our blood.

--Teresia Teaiwa

 
   From a long way off, Ouvea, my island, 
   appears like a humpback surfacing, 
   spiked cliffs like the arched spine 
   of a seahorse, ironwood trees rustling 
   in the breeze, jungle thick as seaweed 
   that grabs your ankle and won't let go. 
   We were out at the stone traps collecting crays 
   when our brothers attacked the police post 
   and took the hostages. 
 
   They're holding the hostages in one of the caves. 
   My uncle, he asks me to go with the other boys. 
   We're not savages, he says, we have to make sure 
   they don't starve. I carry the tea in a pandanus basket, 
   Patrick carries the food. It's a long walk up the ridge 
   until the village is a speck below us, 
   the lagoon a tiny blue eye, circled by a lid of white sand. 
   The cave is warm and smells of bats. 
   The gendarmes sit against a wall, handcuffed. 
   They look bored. One asks me for the soccer scores 
   and I tell him I'll try to find out. 
 
   My father says it's gone on for far too long. 
   He says the French should negotiate. 
   He says the cave ghosts will be offended, 
   that the right priest must say the right prayers 
   to placate the spirits of the dead. 
   I'm afraid he'll stop me ferrying the tea. 
   Yesterday the TV cameras filmed Patrick and me 
   as we prepared to leave. 
   I placed the glasses carefully in the basket 
   then ladled in the steaming tea, scoop by scoop. 
 
   At first they couldn't find the cave. 
   Copters swarming over the cliffs, like a flock of petrels 
   trailing the wake of a boat. We laughed. 
   They were angry. They stripped old man Wea naked 
   and tied his arms to the banyan tree. 
   The women pleaded with them. Shut up, 
   or you'll be next, yelled the beret. 
   He picked up these wires, like the jumper leads 
   you use on a flat battery. 
   The red one he clamped onto Wea's nipple. 
   Then his toe. Then his penis. 
   When Wea's head hit the trunk of the tree, 
   he ...