“Break the Pen,” A Challenge for Pacific Thinking: A Poem by Mr. Faafetai Aiavā
“Break the Pen,” A Challenge for Pacific Thinking
By Faafetai Aiavā
Literacy is the mark of learning
This is true, though not entirely
The letter immortalised our thinking
This is true, though not entirely
Many stories lived before the pen
Unwritten wealth of a life back then
Stories that often shape our thinking
Narratives reshaped in our memory keeping
Can a pen truly swim in the depths of Pacific life?
Where the lost and the unborn are intertwined?
Where sacred and profane live side by side?
Where playing with words was a daily rite?
There are always whispers that escape the page
Like sea worms that vanish at the break of day
Even common tales can be wrongly scribed
Like a bonito hauled to the outrigger side
As we yielded to the birth of paper
The pen was made our story-maker
But what of the treasures not on paper,
That thrives without an alleged maker?
The stories we tell are concrete and real
Like the river stones used to cook our meal
While it can be worthless to the printed craft
It is earnestly kept in bamboos of the heart
The longer the letter controls how we think
The more our thinking is enslaved by ink
Break the pen and free your mind!
Inscriptions of love narrated by time
While a book can teach us who God is
It can never exhaust how God exists
For even when we see God in our stories
It is always true, though not entirely
The following is with reference to the photograph used in this post.
Tom Mc Nemar. (2011). Vinatge Fountain Pens. Available from: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/vintage-fountain-pens-tom-mc-nemar.html. [Accessed: 14/8/2017].
