PACIFICATION RITES

                                                                 

...must not the head of the vates be

severed so that he may continue to sing?

Must not the self be destroyed before a

new being can be born?

-          Chant of Saints

for the Villager

When Okonkwo committed suicide

we refused to touch the body

that was impure. Left it to

the vultures and crows carry on

with the Pacification rites

and we drove on to the hills of Taworakawa

and Rewai, where sidelong lofty glances

were cast at the now emptied fields

and at men that grope along the veins

of rivers that flow back. Heard yarns circle

then, as crows do after high savannah fires

above the head of a certain “madding crowd”

and we looked out for signs of appeasement

in the wings of raven sailing the wind

farther across the blue of the morning

Mornings never felt fresher then: sunlight

on ridges, the women gathered: with pots

baskets, and wood: and twigs; and leaves

that in cities once

spoke of villagers betrayed, were gathered

also; at the fires of our offerings –

This poem published upon the request of 50 literature students at the University of Papua New Guinea in protest against the sacking of the Storyboard by the Weekender editor of the National newspaper, the worst of atrocities done against a writer by an individual for no other reason than to express a personal grudge of hatred against that writer. In sacking the Storyboard the editor sacked the soul of the nation.

See also STORYBOARD SACKED!