Sing, O Muse, of the long canoe and the sea-road without end—
how the far-wandering Polynesian people followed the sure signs of heaven,
when the sacred conch cried out and gathered them to the water.
They unrolled the star-wrought charts, the old lore of the night,
and set their hearts on the first course, seeking the name of home.
On fermented breadfruit they endured, and on fish drawn from the deep,
guarding their scant freshwater as a king guards gold in his hall.
Then Hawaiʻi, wave-girt and high-crowned, received them at last—an isle of rites and ripe harvest, of plenty poured out.
There they raised bright shelters on unbroken shores,
and set their seed in the black volcanic loam, gift of fire.
They hewed tidepools as pens for finned abundance, and when winter rains came down,
they woke the slips and cuttings, the tubers and shoots, and all grew strong beneath unending summer—
as though the first garden breathed again on earth.
So they flourished, far from the quarrels of men, in a world ringed round by sea.
But the Fates, who turn the thread for all who breathe, revolved their will.
From the outer world, there came a black-blown breath—pestilence—then the harvest of death.
Measles, whooping cough, and swift influenza walked the villages;
and the people fell in their thousands.
Then they cried aloud to the deathless ones, to Namaka of the deep-swirling waters,
and to Kanaloa, earth-shaker of the sea, who rules the salt ways.
Yet it was too late: the future strode on, unmoved.
So in that other Eden, when the heavens drew back their veil, there was no comfort—
only the hard light of a new dawn, and the long birth-pain that follows gods and men alike.
Corney Press 