At the Washaway

When you told me your hands
were fish—fuafua or pelepele, to be precise—I was

unmoved. And your neck and shoulders a school of
limu fua or trumpeter, I believed

neither you nor the yellows and pinks, the orange
afterglow. When you said

your heart was a fish
hiding behind a rock, I would have

none of it. Nor that your body was a pool
of hapi, hexagon groper, flutemouth

and cornetfish. I could not so much as
entertain the thought:  your elbows, forearms

and fingers as humu or hafulu
or fine-lined bristletooth. At least

not until Sally Lightfoot led me
      by the mottled hand
down the spiralling staircase of

this, her undersea forest
    her orchestra pit, my washaway.

Avatele, Niue

Gregory O’Brien

Note

‘At the Washaway’ was written on the island of Niue, where I spent a fortnight in November 2022 making etchings with my long-time collaborator and friend John Pule. With another friend, geographer and academic Robin Kearns, we visited the settlement of Avatele–one of very few sandy beaches on the island. Just above high-water mark, the overgrown remnants of a beach-cafe/bar, ‘The Washaway’, is still standing (but, sadly–post-covid–no long operating). The Washaway was once famous for its ‘honesty bar’. Customers were asked to list on a piece of paper any drinks procured from the self-help bar and then pay cash to someone-or-other before sauntering off into the darkness much later in the evening.

Mid-morning, on the reef at Avatele, I stood knee-deep in the crystal clear water and watched tropical fish dart past. I followed the precise manoeuvres of crabs and various kinds of shrimp. It was in the company of these aquatic species that this poem–a love poem to Moana Oceania–began. You might ask who is Sally Lightfoot, at the conclusion of the poem? As marine biologists will tell you, a Sally Lightfoot is a kind of urchin crab common on Pacific Islands. It was one of these exemplary sea-creatures that, Virgil-like, led me in the direction of this reverie, this poem.

Gregory O’Brien

Gregory O’Brien’s monograph on painter Don Binney is published in October this year. He is presently curating (with Jaqui Knowles) an exhibition based upon his book Always song in the water for the New Zealand Maritime Museum Hui Te Ananui a Tangaroa, where it will be on display from August 2023 until February 2024. A new, much enlarged edition of the book, Always song in the water–an ode to Moana Oceania, is being published by the Museum to accompany the exhibition.