Why I live on the shores of an empty harbor.
I live on the shores of a vast empty harbor,
where an occasional boat cuts the silvery lines of the water,
or a long carved waka (canoe) rowed by a dozen men with strong brown arms.
Men with wide chests and beautiful tattoos.
I can imagine being a child, running into the arms of a strong brown dad
with bare feet and the smell of the sea dripping from his shorts.
My dad was not a strong Samoan or a handsome Maori man.
He was a white skinned Russian with pale green eyes and a weak body,
made weaker by a hand grenade that exploded into his stomach and legs.
He spent the years of my childhood recovering from that war.
But we had some good times too.
My first husband used to cry and yelp in his sleep.
He was a paratrooper like my dad.
He was taken to war when he was nineteen and did not see home for almost ten months.
I don’t remember what war he fought in and what for.
There were too many to count.
I do remember loving the blue in his eyes.
So now I reside by a vast empty harbor,
on a western forgotten coast
where birds outnumber people.
I do not shy away from people.
I love people, I truly do.
I love the funny and the smart,
the quirky and the weird,
the artists and the bankers and the office workers toiling away in anonymous cubicles.
Love the solicitors arguing in the courts,
the politicians on their podiums.
I love the crazy and the sane,
the sinners and the righteous.
The musicians who hears the unseen vibes and bring it forth for those who can’t,
the writers and the dreamers,
the losers and the lazy and the lost.
I love them all.
But if you put too many of them together in a crowded space,
they are bound to argue and to fight,
and I have no fists for fighting.
where an occasional boat cuts the silvery lines of the water,
or a long carved waka (canoe) rowed by a dozen men with strong brown arms.
Men with wide chests and beautiful tattoos.
I can imagine being a child, running into the arms of a strong brown dad
with bare feet and the smell of the sea dripping from his shorts.
My dad was not a strong Samoan or a handsome Maori man.
He was a white skinned Russian with pale green eyes and a weak body,
made weaker by a hand grenade that exploded into his stomach and legs.
He spent the years of my childhood recovering from that war.
But we had some good times too.
My first husband used to cry and yelp in his sleep.
He was a paratrooper like my dad.
He was taken to war when he was nineteen and did not see home for almost ten months.
I don’t remember what war he fought in and what for.
There were too many to count.
I do remember loving the blue in his eyes.
So now I reside by a vast empty harbor,
on a western forgotten coast
where birds outnumber people.
I do not shy away from people.
I love people, I truly do.
I love the funny and the smart,
the quirky and the weird,
the artists and the bankers and the office workers toiling away in anonymous cubicles.
Love the solicitors arguing in the courts,
the politicians on their podiums.
I love the crazy and the sane,
the sinners and the righteous.
The musicians who hears the unseen vibes and bring it forth for those who can’t,
the writers and the dreamers,
the losers and the lazy and the lost.
I love them all.
But if you put too many of them together in a crowded space,
they are bound to argue and to fight,
and I have no fists for fighting.
