South Pacific Ocean 1989: Focus, To Be Transparent Within, After Birth, Before Death

I am the Daughter of Troubled Sleep, 

Hine-maki-moe.

Beauty surrounds me 

as the cargo boat arches 
as the waves swell.

I feel Te Kore-rawea, 

the Delightful Void, 
rock me to sleep -

communicating 
via heavenly stars 

to talk me through the night.

My armed guardians 
of the sky 

are on twinkle alert 
to watch over me,

from their high vantage point 

they sound a caution to the winds,

and whisper encouragement to me 

to keep my imagination alive.

I dream 
that I dwell 
within the empty Space 

that produces the atmosphere above us –

from the Nothing, 

the amplification from the Nothing, 

the abundance

and the power of increasing -

The Living Breath that dwells within, 

my empty Space.

In the beginning there was Nothing, 

Po, Te Kore –

Te Kore-tua-tahi the First Void 

without light, heat or sound;

chaos without form or motion, 

gradual vague stirrings 
that began Within –

the Nothing of light 

intercoursing with darks 

producing heat and moisture.

An entanglment of relationships 

within Te Kore-tua-rua, the Second Void,

and Te Kore-nui, the Vast Void, 

That sounded substance and form.

Vibratory elements interacting 

creating a swell of unpossessed thoughts –

from thought the remembrance; 

from remembrance the consciousness, 

the intention and desire.

Te Ao-marama, the Bright Day, 

so resistant to leave, 
smears the sky in a dance

with Te Po-terea, the Drifting Night, 

who wants day brushed away.

Te Po, the Night, 

hurries in to paint the sky 
into evening shades

by dipping its brush 
into the Wellness 

of Te Kore-roa, the Far-Extending Void.

Under the moon 
the cold wind stiffens me 

as I lay on my back staring into Nothing.

I watch the starlight disappear 

each time I pitch with the roll of the ship.

Te Po-teki , the Hanging Night appears.

The Moaning Night of Te Po-whamha 

sounds me Wide, Awake.

I feel for my back, 

pressured numb 

from the wooden deck slats,

the form shipping my ribcage across the Ocean
the wooden bars of my cradle, 

when pressed against me checker 

a labyrinth of patterns into my sleep.

I am Begat to Become, 

a thought on a game board ready for play –

a feminine knight 
contained within the opacity 

and thickness of my own skin.

I am a watery sack 

moving around the transformational field,

the swishing and sloshing 

Begets me my transparency.

I become a remembrance, 

a filament of the four directions 

as elemental as earth, water, fire, air and ether
Within my sound Conception 
into thinned skinned colour,
into lightness of being clear through -

I am a focused beam of transmission, 
designed to be transparent 
Within, after birth, before death.

~~ Other People's Fingerprints ~~
In 1883 Gubran Khalil Gibran 
was born in Ottoman Syria,
and he died in 1931 in New York City.
The period in between life and death he created 
a book called The Prophet.
His sounds were published in 1923, he wrote them, they read;

“The sea that calls all things unto her calls me,
and I must embark. For, to stay,
though the hours burn in the night,
is to freeze and crystallize and be bound in a mould.
Fain that I take with me all that is here. But how shall I?
A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that give it wings.
Alone must it seek the ether.
And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.”

Image Credit: Karin Lisa Atkinson "Self Portrait, Star Gazing, South Pacific"