Hina Triumphant
Maui, foolish boy, only a being as
rash as you would imagine destroying me. The magic of your grandmother’s jawbone,
your past glories, do not impress me.
Even if the Wagtail had not laughed out loud at the sight of your legs
sticking out of me as you pushed headfirst up toward my womb, I still would
have been roused to wakefulness and crushed you as I did.
You should have been ruled by the
overpowering pleasures of my sex, lingering in the warmth and moistness, the
fecund smells inside me. Instead, the illusion of immortality spurred you on.
You were seduced by a lie! Had you completed your journey and emerged from my
mouth, I would have bitten you in two, and so would have kept humanity chained
within my power, forever born to light, only to see the light continually
die—in the eyes of those you love as they close forever; within you, when your
own eyes finally go dark; in the heavens, when stars, even your own sun, are
extinguished.
It is unfortunate that you, known
for your wit, did not think to wake me with a gentle touch. Surely the old
woman taught you the power of such respect.
Master that, mortals, and one day the death of your planet will not
matter. You will have found a home elsewhere. I doubt your egotism and brutish
aggression will permit that.
Maui, those you sought to save are
unworthy—believing because they must die they are doomed. Always there will be those standing on the
shore, ready to laugh at your defeat. Much better to stay drunk on rice wine
until you die an old man, wrinkled, toothless, a eunuch, than to sacrifice
yourself for cynics and cowards.
As for me, one never born and who
cannot die, I confess the endless days alone become tedious. I wonder what love
might have been like with you, my hands grasping the firm flesh of your
buttocks, the heat of human desire thrusting within me.
Still, I ask you, what deity, no,
what reasonable being, would trade eternity for the certainty of death. Really?
Just to gamble on the uncertain alchemy of human love?
Stephen Granzyk is a retired English teacher who lives
and writes poetry in Chicago. His poems have appeared in English Journal and
Blacklight, a publication of the Organization of Black Students at the
University of Chicago.
Tags:
Poetry