And So I Go

Te Ao Hou, 1973, Page 21

And So I Go by Patricia Grace —Our son, brother, grandchild, you say you are going away from this place you love where you are loved. Don't go. We warm you. We give you strength, we give you love. These people are yours. These hills, this soil, this wide stretch of sea. This quiet place. —This land is mine, this sea, these people. Here I give love and am loved but I must go, this is in me. I go to learn new ways and make a way for those who follow because I love. My elders, brothers and sisters, children of this place, we must go on. This place we love cannot hold us always. The world is large. Not forever can we stay here warm and quiet to turn the soil and reap the sea and live our lives. This I've always known. And so I go ahead for those who come. To stand mid-stream and hold a hand to either side. It is in me. Am I not at once dark and fair, fair and dark. A mingling. Since our blue-eyed father held our dark-eyed mother's hand and let her lead him here. —But our brother, he came, and now his ways are hers out of choice because of love. —And I go because of love. For our mother and her kind and for our father. For you and for our children whose mingling will be greater than our own. I make a way. Learn new ways. So I can take up that of our father's race and hold it to the light. Then the people of our mother may come to me and say How is this. And I will hold the new thing to the light for them and point and say See. You see, that is how it is. Then take up that which is our mother's and say to those of our father You see. See there, that is why. —And brother what of us. Must we do this too. Must we leave this quiet place at the edge of hills at the edge of sea and follow you. For the sake of our mother's people who are our own. And for our father and because we love? —You must choose but if you do not feel it in you, stay here in warmth. Let me do this and do not weep for my going. I have this power in me. I am full. I ache for this. Often I have climbed these hills and run about as free as rain. Stood on the highest place and looked down on great long waves looping onto sand. Where we played, grew strong, learned our body skills. And learned the ways of summers, storms and tides. From where we stepped into the spreading sea to bathe or gather food. I have watched and felt this ache in me. I have watched the people. Seen myself there with them living too. Our mother and our blue-eyed father who came here to this gentle place that gives us life and strength. Watched them work and play, laugh and cry and love. Seen our uncle sleeping. Brother of our mother. Under a tree bright and heavy with sunned fruit. And there beside our uncle. his newest baby daughter sleeping too. And his body sweat ran down and over her head in a new baptising. I was filled with strength. And old Granny Roka sits on her step combing her granddaughter's hair, patiently grooming. Plaiting and tying the heavy tangled kelp which is her pride. Or walk together on the mark of tide, old Granny and the child, collecting sun-white sticks for the fire. Tying the sticks into bundles and carrying them on their backs to the little house. Together. And seen the women walk out over rocks when the tide is low, submerging by a hole of rock with clothes ballooning. Surfacing with wine-red crayfish, snapping tails and clawing air on a still day. And on a special

day the river stones fired for cooking by our father, our cousins and our uncles who laugh and sing. Working all as one. Our little brother's horse walks home with our little one asleep. Resting a head on his pony's neck, breathing in the warm horse stink knees locked into its sides. Fast asleep on the fired flesh of horse. And I ache. But not forever this. And so I go. —And when you go our brother as you say you must will you be warm. Will you know love. Will an old woman kiss your face and cry warm tears because of who you are. Will children take your hands and say your name? In your new life our brother will you sing? —The warmth and love I take from here with me and return for their renewal when I can. It is not a place of loving where I go or not the same as love that we have known. No love-fire there to warm one's self beside. No love warmth. Blood warmth. Wood and tree warmth. Skin on skin warmth. Tear warmth. Rain warmth. Earth warmth. Breath warmth. Child warmth. Warmth of sunned stones. Warmth of sunned water. Sunned sand. Sand ripple. Water ripple. Ripple sky. Sky Earth. Earthy Sky. And our beginning. —And you ask me shall I sing. I tell you this. The singing will be here within myself. Inside this body. Fluting through these bones. Ringing in the skies of being. Ribboning in the course of blood to soothe swelled limbs and ache-bruised heart. —You say to us our brother you will sing. But will the songs within be songs of joy? Will they ring. Out in the skies of being as you say. Pipe through bone caress flesh wounding? Or will the songs within be ones of sorrow? Of warmth dreams. Love dreams. Of aching. And flesh bruising? If you listen will it be weeping that you hear? Lament of people. Earth moan. Water sigh. Morepork cry of death? —My sisters and brothers, loved ones, I cannot tell. But there will be gladness for me in what I do. I ask no more. Some songs will be of joy and others hold the moan and sigh, the owl cry and throb of loneliness. —What will you do then our brother when the singing dirges through your veins, pressing and swelling in your throat and breast, pricking at your mind with its aching needles of sound? —What should I do but deny its needling and stealing into mind. Its pressing into throat and breast. I will not put a hand of comfort over body hardenings nor finger blistered veins in soothing. The wail, the lament shall not have my ear. I will pay the lonely body ache no mind. Thus I go. I stand before my dark-eyed mother, blue-eyed father, brothers and sisters, my aunts and uncles and their children and these old ones. All the dark-eyed light-eyed minglings of this place. We gather. We sing and dance together for my going. We laugh and cry. We touch. We mingle tears as blood. I give you my farewell. Now I stand on a tide-wet rock to farewell you sea. I listen and hear your great heart thud. I hear you cry. Do you too weep for me? Do you reach out with mottled hands to touch my brow and anoint my tear wet face with tears of salt? Do not weep but keep them well. Your great heart beats I know for such as these. Give them sea, your great sea love. Hold them gently. Already they are baptised in your name. As am I. And take your renewal where I go. And take your love. Take your strength. And deep heart thud. Your salt kiss. Your caring. Now on a crest of hill in sweeping wind.

Where I have climbed and run. And loved and walked about. With life brimming full in me as though I could die of living. Guardian hill you do not clutch my hand, you do not weep. You know that I must go and give me blessing. You guard with love this quiet place rocking at the edge of sea. And now at the highest place I stand. And feel a power grip me. And a lung-bursting strength. A trembling in my legs and arms. A heavy ache weighting down my groin. And I lie on soil in all my heaviness and trembling. Stretch out my arms on wide Earth Mother and lay my face on hers. Then call out my love and speak my vow. And feel release in giving to you earth and to you sea, to these people. So I go. And behind me the sea-moan and earth-cry, the sweet lament of people. Towards the goddess as she sleeps I go. On with light upon my face.