Words for the Chisel (collection)/Poppy Juice
Poppy Juice
There is an island in an alien slantOf water running endlessly on its edgeWhose mountains shut at sunset like a plantAgainst a sea of darkness. When the wedge—The peak of shadow skims the valley ledge,The island locks its color up, leaves bareIts beaches to the sea, the colorless air.
And people in the cup of sea and skyAmong the painted island's blues and redsSee every night the wedge of shadow flyAcross their valleys, over all their headsAnd shut their eyes, and hide themselves in beds;—Meanwhile the sea spread level on the tideProwls in its surf. Lehua lived and died
Under this quarrel, this twofold daily change . . .Her men found graves along the China coast:Eric the elder;—then the other strangeEric, her son, who wanted to be lost.Lehua knew too well which she loved most.She ended like a barnacle fastened whereThe harbor waters see-saw. It is there.—
The little shack the schooners anchored by . . .They tried, the other day to raid the den,They found a passive Buddha hung up high,Eight grams of opium and some ChinamenWith one kanaka hag. They asked her whenShe took to living there. She gave no answer.—There was a woman once, a hula dancer
Who kept this place, said someone half aloud.She turned her back and muttered with a frown,They took her with her pipe away,The crowd Moved off behind. Enormous night came downAnd made a ruby of the tropic townAnd heaped the sea upon the open shore—And no one saw the woman any more.
The hollow lantern hung like a fat spiderWith four words in Chinese, lettered dull red,The door was creaking in, opening wider,You saw a crooked stool, an iron bed,Old canisters of tea and chunks of bread. . .The moon slipped past the window like a ghost—And touched the pink-nosed Buddha on the post.
Eric had brought the Buddha from Japan.He laid it on the table, near, for her.She took it shyly up. The color ranInto her lips. The saw how red they were.The carving smelt of sandal-wood and myrrh;She laughed and kissed it. Eric waiting, grim,Was thinking how her body suited him.
She was the eeriest woman anywhereOn the Pacific, or Pacific shores;—So fragile and so savage, with the stareOf delicate deer halted on all fours . . .Lehua ran with laughter from the snoresOf all the heavy white-men who had foundSmoke more substantial than her singing sound.
She had come down from the valleys very youngJust sixteen—lodged with friends who kept a house For haole sailors. When her song was sungAnd danced her dance, Eric would seem to rouseFrom lethargy, until a long carouseEnded in silence, while she smiled and dartedBeyond his grasp. And he grew sullen hearted.
She knew he was a smuggler and a coldWhite-angered Swede, and not the man for her;But still she wore her flowers white and gold,And shrugged at him, but shunned him oftenerWith feints to snare him till she saw him stirLike a lean tiger roused from wary sleeping,So Eric rose and came, stalking and creeping.
What Eric wanted more than simply someWoman or other, neither he nor sheKnew. The waited, eyed her, narrow and dumb;Another white man took her on his knee,And there they sat,—furtive and treacherous three,Till she, Lehua, rose and fled far outOn the long pier, and paused. And faced about.
She married him and hated him. He strodeLike some rude giant in their narrow den;His head would sway the lamps that gloomed and glowedFaint in the hazy cloud. The prostrate menStirred at his proddings, drowsed to sleep again;Eric would bang the door, forgetting herGo out to wharves where ships and seamen were,
And she would sit aside and sigh and dream,Dream as she lingered at the window-pane; She loved the mountains and the mountain stream:She longed to smell the maile vine againSpreading its odor with the drowsy rain.—I hate the sea, she said—the smell of tar,I want to go where pools and palm-trees are.
Men were afraid to speak to her. She dreamedLike a young virgin tenderly, and moreIndifferent than aged women,—seemedTo be again as she had been beforeShe came to town a hula-girl and whore;Only great Eric strode across her trance,Laughed loud to see her shudder at his glance.
Late in the evenings came the sound of whips,Hoof-beats and cries; the long banana-trainCame from the valleys to the riding ships;Donkeys were loaded with ripe sugar-cane,And wet banana-leaves gleaming with rain.The mountain fastnesses she saw, the tallStill palms, and heard the mountain water-fall.
The water-fall that poured, rushing in quiet,—That seemed to fall and then to wane and hang;And the pale tree that rose so lightly by it—The maile vine that wound on the lang-lang.This place was fixed: this picture was a pang.She saw it with the shutting of an eyeWhite on the darkness of another sky.
Waves mocked her then, and the whispering hushSpreading with sunset gave her heart small ease;At night along the reefs, the unending rush— Not like the noise that falters in the treesAbove the lesser ripples of the breeze;Lying awake she listened tense and wept;Or she would wail and murmur if she slept.
He said he'd take her with him once. She clungTo the sharp bedstead like a frantic childWho fears the attic darkness. When he wrungHer fingers from the bed-post, Eric smiledAnd carried her as far as where the piledBarrels of saki made a tunnel,—thereShe screamed till Eric hushed her with her hair.
He left his wife ashore to sell the rice,She kept the gambling house and kept it loose;What stakes were won with throwing of the diceThey shoved into her lap for poppy juice.She knew the trade now. Eric knew her use.In all the foreign ports he boasted howHis fair kanaka kept her marriage vow.
—Just a kanaka, but not like the kindThat changes into niggers, Eric saidComing to port, not knowing what to find,But she was there, and sullen, being wed.—You are a sailor's woman. When I'm deadYou can go off with someone on a spree,But now, no matter what, you stick to me.
—And here I am, she said—Big with a child,And Eric's child. Why Eric's? Tell me whyI married him? I never wanted wildAcres of sea or sailors. She would cry, Beat on the window. Eric going byWas beautiful and terrible to herAs her own brother dark men never were.
So Eric ran the gales for years betweenThis harbor and the Orient. She grewMore slender with the years and more serene;Sight of her son gave pride to her anew;There was a whispered pact between these two.She called him Eric. In her heart she said,—A few years and his father will be dead.
—A few years and we two will leave this place,Find some far valley shut to sea and ships.Perhaps its narrow beauty will eraseThese haole smiles and sorrows from my face,Now I am weary and my throat and lipsParched with the rank black smoke . . . I am not fairAs once I was. We will be happy there.
—We will be happy where we both belongGrowing our taro. Kanakas are not madeFor struggle, little Eric. We are strongOnly in endless rustles of green shade.And you will bring me bread-fruit. I will braidMats for our hut and keep a little pig,And we will have a feast when he is big.
Kanaka blood in him, blood of a dancerTook him away and made him wary atHer happy valley plan. He didn't answerAll her sharp questions when he came but sat Tight in the corner like a cougar-cat.She had forgotten how she used to beBefore she was rebuked by the blind sea.
And Eric's blood was like a thing at feudWith all her languid color and her fairClusters of flowers;—so he fled her mood,Followed his father, always, everywhere,A dark man at his heels,—a funny pairTo everyone who saw Lehua frownAnd watch them as they wandered up and down.
The men around would offer her a smoke.—A smuggler takes no opium, she said.Suppose old Eric came before I woke?She was shrewd now and always kept her head.She wore an amber flower and a redSilk holuku.—The smoke is made for men;When one pipe's taken, there's no stopping then.
Some few knew why she left the smoke alone,And burned a lantern nightly at the door,Her boy was strong as steel and fully grownAnd Eric nursed a leper's snowy sore.They would outlive him Jong, and what was moreLive as they chose to live on Eric's gold—And Eric knew they watched him growing old.
Eric the elder a leper! And sheWho shared the labor of the opium tradeIn love with nothing brutal like the sea,A fragile woman, only half afraid,Something between a mother and a maid. Eric was dying now, warping and grim:He always took the boy to sea with him.
She never dreaded sickness,—only fearedThis Swedish love of water. She would beOn the old wharf-end always when he nearedDrawing him back to make him anchor. HeClimbed like a sailor, agile, prancingly,But he was polished bronze, and walked as oneWhose race had been emboldened by the sun.
She spread a net to keep him in the briefTime of his staying,—wore a sheer dress,Yellow and red, a spotted mango-leafThat eddied on her body. HappinessRan in her voice. Minnows and water-cress,All little treasures she had gleaned she pouredOut on the pier before him. Ocean roared.
It was a day as light and sunny sweetAs any in a valley. Flashing brown,The boy was diving, circling at her feet,And she would lean and almost wish to drown,Then up he climbed. And suddenly plunged downDragging her with him under and under. TheyAlways were terrified, after that day.
So, like a landsman, this young Eric stoodIn the low door-way of the little denUnable to go back to ship. One moodHung over both. The night was full of menPutting to sea and sea was loud again With the long wooing of a plangent woe. . .She cut the web at last and let him go.
Across the harbor stood the Wainae,Vast opal mountains open to the sunSave for the middle, where the deep shades liePurple and blue. She watched the shadows runInto the fastness of the cleft, where noneBut shadow people go, and none returnOut of old depths of sandal-wood and fern.
And then old Eric died. She heard the newsAs one who waits too long to alter muchThe heavy groove of living. Smuggler crewsStole in at night to bring her smoke and touchWomen and drink her saki. She was suchA witch for all kanaka boys that theyDidn't dare tell her all they came to say.
Didn't dare tell her how her son had droppedHis father into green, under the bow;Didn't dare tell her how he furled, and stopped,Then tacked for days above him. Chiefly howThis huge Hawaiian skipper picked a rowWith every Swede who said she was a whoreOr told old Eric's trouble. So ashore
He dumped his Chinese cargo, left it allFor any muddy pirate, hidden in weeds,And ran without a ballast into a squallLike a pure madman, having left his SwedesWho knew some navigation mere half-breeds Never quite master . . . Docked at last and slidInto the Hong Kong crowds. There, what he did
Those winter months—smoked or followed women,Or looked for secret cures, or simply loafed,Nobody knew . . . But he got his menOne day in April when the skies were softAnd set them first to scrubbing deck. AloftThe canvas thundered gently. Eric woreA turban like an Arab. Words he swore
Were taken from his father, and the crewDeclared his father left him other things,The white man's gift among them. Eric knew,They called him hap' a haole, and the stingsOf many ancient jests and mutteringsDrove him to sea, where he was master, whereHe strode the deck and drank the tropic air.
Out of the west, out of a wordless yearHis schooner came one day, riding the reef;With sunset on her topsails she came near;This coming rode on old Lehua's griefBringing her eyes unreasonable relief;She sang that day, put on her spotted gownAnd watched them anchor, haul her canvas down.
At last night came, so breathless and so black—The old rats left off gnawing, and the tideMouthed with its toothless gums, the timber-stack.A single star was open, crystal-eyedWhen she let down a lantern over-side.She swung it twice above the water-markThen drew it up, and blew the lantern dark.
An oar dipped from the bay. Came the faint creakOf locks and running ripples at the bow.She brushed her hair impatient from her cheek.Eric was coming. Eric was coming now.—Mother, he said—I can't land. AnyhowI didn't come for long. Don't miss me—I—Mother, he said—I've come to say goodbye.
Why did he come so stealthily as ifHe were a seaman still, a criminalOn shore. He sat there hidden, talking, stiff . . .His voice in darkness sounded beautiful.Beating on shore resounded the loud, dullChant of the sea that followed when—he fled;She wished he were with her, safe in his bed.
—I've got to go away and leave this place,The smuggling time is over here. And you . . .You've never seen me much, to miss my face.I've got a fine old ship. I've signed a crew.I want to see the world. Her black hair blewBlack as the night and covered up her eyes.She knew that she was listening to lies.
The shadows of the ships all loomed up vast;Felt but not seen they stood, tangled in air.There was no light in heaven or earth to castLight on the stealthy tide, nor anywhereSound but of his voice below her there.—Darkness and sea, she said,—darkness and sea,And my own son has turned away from me.
—Here is some gold, he said.—Mother believeI go away from you because I must.Don't touch me, Mother. Mother, don't you grieve.I'll come again. I promise you. I just . . .She lit her lantern, shaking then. He thrustAn oar against the wharf-end as she swungHer light sharp on the water. Cold she hung
Peering. He sat there dazzled in the glareOf her sick lantern . . . saw his forehead soHorrible white (his eyes threatened her stare . . .),A scar like a half moon. Softly—Now you know,Mother, damn you, now will you let me go?The sea between them lifted, fell and spoke,And after that she slept and never woke.
She took to smoke that night, deafened her earsTo sea, to sound of the sea, and prowling ships;Smoke veiled her eyes and with the hurrying yearsSet its dry seal upon her withering lips,Darkening her face from men in dull eclipse.—He took his father's name, she'd vacantly say,A father, a father took a son away.
So with the years she sat and saw his ghostRise in the phantom vapors of the air;The passive little Buddha on the postChanged countenance to see the spectre there . . .Deep in the drowsy perfume of her hairBeside the spectre presence of her sonShe found the valley of oblivion.
But not the other valley. No one comesNear its serene reality. The tallBow of the water bends itself and drumsOn the bare rocks. No voice will ever callOr ever answer from the valley wall.Untouched by dream it hangs in emptiness,And the pure stream pours on and is no less.