Eating Motifs

At Seventeen
I searched on canvas
My identity
Child of Pacifica
Through Oceanic waves
ROund unfurling currents
With Schools of Yellow Fin
Surfing Northwards
Sharks hot on their tails
Snapping at bits of adrenalin
And fish entrails
Swarms of Terns
Seagulls and Hurricane birds
Hurtling themselves Kamikaze
Into thrashing sea of terror, fear and hunger
To kick and thrust out
The frothing amniotic waters
With life clutched tight between beak
Fluttering into the tradewinds
Airborne flights of mercy
To some patch of goanna
Vomitting into mouths agape
Along panadanu fringed Islet
Seething with banded venom
Hordes of Hermit crab at conference
On a shell strewn
Wave lapped
Coconut littered
Home to you and I
Children of Pacifica.

At twenty eight
I scraped from the streets
Food and friendship
As a 3rd generation periurban child
Not halfcaste
Not General elector
But a Vasu mind you
Inhabitant of some Lean to
ALong what they might call
The Suva-Nausori Corridor
Grog-swiping on tales of May 14 and 19,
Or Hongkong 86, 96
Listening to 100.4
Dieting on Mackerel
Canned and frozen
On bread and Flora
Black tea
Living with my in-laws
With my four kids
Smacking mosquitoe
Ona street full of dogs in season all year
In this
Little paradise
Close to a garment factory
You know where!
PACIFICA!!!

At school
During Social Science
My boy
Drew our family tree
My Old woman
The other three and me
Stickmen holding hands in a row
Talking about his identity
Came back to me and asked
"Us gang
Where do we come from again Daddy?"
Us gang
We are a proud race
Of warriors
Of Seafarers
Sons and daughters of this land
And Ancestral gods
of your grandfather from.....?
Anyway where we really come from.....?
And I spun the Mantra....

“We are children of Pacific
Through Oceanic waves
Round unfurling currents
With shaols of Yellow Fin
Suring Northwards
Sharks hot on their tails....