Poetry Collection Fall 2014: II. Anufat

The night is quiet, the air warm from noonday.
It smells of sea and jungle, a hot salty musk;
It burns my nose, prickles my throat, and calms my nerves
as I lay in the banyan vines, my brazen act of defiance.
 I challenge you, ancient ones, for I am not scared.
The earth and sea play my lullaby, waves upon the rocks
Churning and crashing and rumbling, the same foamy refrain.
It is an eerie night, the air cooling as the witching hour approaches
The land crabs hiss and scuttle across the damp jungle floor
The snakes whisper and slither through the trees
“He is here, he is here”
Finally, he is here.  I challenge you, ancient one, for I am not scared.
He fills the sky, blotting the stars, muting the sea.
His face is many faces – decayed, muscles contorted in bloody, pulsating death,
A festering hole straight through the skull with muck, moss, and maggots
His body – a tangle of tissues and tendons, like bloody banyan vines…
I wake from the lucid terror of hot air, ocean, and damp earth;
Of land crabs, snakes, and the mighty taotaomo’na Anufat,
The icy sweat on my neck brings me back home, grounds me,
And trickles upon a purple mark, a new contusion
 Stretching across my chest – a long, smudged handprint:
An eerie reminder of my reverence, and why we do not challenge the ancient ones.