>From: Sally Evans <[log in to unmask]>
Watch out you are eating
>and sleeping properly if you are writing as much as this (seriously)
>Sally ee
if it is Arabian nights that are ripening your fruit, dear Arthur, then let
me help you keep awake and hungry......
more, more..I have no care for your sanity, only your desire
P-P
>
> > Ship Makkit at Patutiva
> >
> > Tilleys hiss in moth-drummed globes of light;
> > kumaras glow like rubies, couched in grass;
> > drinking nuts piled, brown and plump as Polynesian breasts;
> > tapioca, starlight-white, snows on glossy leaves;
> > fists of bananas bunch on blushing mangoes;
> > char-grilled pink-cheeked job fish, rich seams of meat;
> > pulled apart for viewing in the hot and yammering market
> > close to the jetty and the sleek lagoon.
> >
> > Black hands, swift as spiders, fiddle and arrange,
> > leaf-waft intrusive flies away from translucent melon
> > and oozing plush-fleshed paw-paws ranged over
> > treasured calico, chequered and chintzed and willow-pattern blue.
> > Eyes, bright with betel, dart and compare,
> > secret whispers fix prices, gossip, story and snigger
> > behind the black fans of hand and leaf
> > and always the anxious harking for a distant greeting
> > down the long warm slumbers of the night.
> >
> > The swaying sentinel, palm-perched at perilous height,
> > tears the night with his shrill cry," Uminao! Hem cam noa ia!"
> > and a sigh settles on the market, like a lover on his bride.
> > The hush explodes with shouts and squeals of laughter
> > from the hip-wriggling pikininis' bare-arsed jig,
> > the wafting leaves increase in speed as the night bulges
> > with the whale-wide, low-watt-light-swung, rust-scabbed,
> > tyre-swagged, hulk of the islands' ferry,
> > as it sidles and nudges, with a gigantic grace,
> > into the web of a dripping puzzle of ropes to mate with the jetty.
> >
> > Deep pound of diesel mutes to a murmur and the sides clank down.
> > Light and people spill into the mill of the market,
> > silhouettes till lamps define them and then they melt into the crowd.
> > Frangipani, diesel, sweat, paraffin,
> > trodden earth and slapping sea thicken the air.
> > I sit with friends on long logs beside the stalls apart from this press
>of
> > strangers.
> > We chat and smoke the black tabac in resinous clouds;
> > spit betel-blood to roll in dust; watch women at the toilsome tasks of
> > trade;
> > play-act the constant hunt for change; parcel fish in banana leaf;
> > bundle the kasava and nali nuts; sift and twist the powdered shell.
> >
> > The bull-blare of horn informs
> > and the
> > Uminoa departs.
> >
> >
> > We watch her leave, thinning down the moon -path, fading, gone,
> > then fold the fragments, shake and close the cloths with loving care,
> > scold heedless, past-it pikininis with sharp words and long sticks.
> > Lamps disperse, float up the hill and will-o-the wisp along the shore;
> > canoes down-doppler in fast farewells;
> > cash is counted, tucked and put to hoard.
> > All over the village lights burn a while, then dowse,
> > one last raucous peal of laughter, a dog responds with indignation,
> > then, slowly, silence and the moon folds Patutiva into sleep
Perpetua Pullman
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