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Suggested by a Hawaiian legend
ONLY Ka-ne could do this | |
| After the other gods failed: | |
| Ka-ne, the careless creator | |
| Who looked on | |
| Indolently | 5 |
| While his industrious brothers, fretting over little tasks, | |
| Wedged bones for the wings of birds | |
| And carved mortals of coral. | |
| |
| Impatiently they looked up | |
| From their litters of shells and feathers | 10 |
| When Ka-ne, | |
| With the crash of fresh thunder, | |
| Pro-created fire. | |
| |
| They knew he had made the sun | |
| When they thought he was harmlessly playing. | 15 |
| Under the iridescence of stars | |
| They had shielded their heads with their arms | |
| When he wrung, | |
| With a great laugh, | |
| Day from the centre-knot of night. | 20 |
| |
| Now in a moment of passion | |
| Ka-ne, brooding and lusty, | |
| Pro-created fire | |
| In the dim womb of water. | |
| |
| Green and amber flooded, | 25 |
| The sea lay serene, | |
| Warm to the brim of the tide, | |
| Her full soft bosom blossoming | |
| In vanishing flowers | |
| On the sands. | 30 |
| |
| Foam fronds | |
| Too frail | |
| To uncurl their hidden yellow stamens on the sands. | |
| |
| Frail, | |
| A quiet cupful of water, | 35 |
| Untouched by the tangles of reefs | |
| And untorn by the violences of surfs; | |
| With no knowledge of iron islands, or the cold harsh hands of storms: | |
| Serene and frail, | |
| From the gold honey of her long undulations | 40 |
| To the milky tendrils | |
| That curled and coiled and clung | |
| Against the sands. | |
| |
| So brooding, | |
| Ka-ne leaned down | 45 |
| And took the sea; | |
| And drew it, shimmering, into a single wave, | |
| Until it touched heaven | |
| And him. | |
| |
| Then, sobbing, | 50 |
| The sea slipped back | |
| And spread, and became still. | |
| |
| A slow wavering | |
| Went like a light | |
| From end to end of the sea. | 55 |
| |
| The sea, not the sky, | |
| Was about to bear fire: | |
| And the light of a drowned sun | |
| Pushed up ridges of crystal. | |
| |
| Terrible gauzes of foam | 60 |
| Broke to its surfaces; | |
| And the slant of great shadows blotted its round tides. | |
| |
| Then in agony | |
| The sea screamed; | |
| And fire, her enemy, | 65 |
| Tore her, with a long sound of rending | |
| Like a silk garment. | |
| Fire jumped from the wet sea, | |
| Nimble, | |
| Youngest of the elements. | 70 |
| |
| For, like horses, had reared up | |
| Eight slim-necked volcanoes: | |
| Horses, stamping underneath, | |
| And tossing manes of fire to the sun. | |
| |
| Then did the sea begin to learn— | 75 |
| After bearing Ka-ne | |
| These eight sons, these eight frightful volcanoes— | |
| How to make surf, like whips; | |
| How to beat after the manner of mothers, | |
| How to build reefs for the safety of her sons; | 80 |
| And how, when they threw hot stones at her who bore them, | |
| To fling the foam of madness at their feet. | |
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