you are supple and strong like overlaid tapa 
your body taken flight with a goddess figure voice 

the tapa carries ancestral messages to you, 
it wraps your memories tight across your chest 
your uncles, fathers, mothers press close- 
grand-kin in motifs that encircle the sun 

the tapa is stained brown; the smell of soil, 
a dark crease to a hungry woman, 
people dark the sun could not bleach lighter 

you carry tapa, watch woven korowai, 
chant a double-wickered awareness 
your genealogy sinks upon your body 

surrounded in this breath, you are a transfigured god 
and distance yourself hungrily 
as a weapon, as a shaman, as a shark 

your arms open and sweeping forward 
to the seed-bed taking root- 
these are not perishable worlds that take a silent witness 
they speak in wefts, in tongues, in suspended paper paths 
 

my lineage is weeds in a dark pond 
my korowai is moth-eaten 
  

  © 2000