MIKAELA NYMAN and NANCY GASELONA PALMER

 

Tattooing the heart

 

I drape you in feathers     and halo
not icon but bird woman 

born into Makara, parrot tribe
the bird totem to which I belong

claws sunk deep into earth, a counter-
weight to the cry of Valkyries

the droning sound of cicadas
resounding immortality

I paint you closer to God while
my ego crouches in the shadow of the cross

faith is all I can cling on to
the thought that you are at peace

ache to attach you to paper
in pencil, pigment and Indian ink

painful and sharp, piercing through
inked and black, tattooing the heart

see the light leak in
while the soot sinks

see how it vanishes and disappears
into Mother earth

I attach my sorrow to paper between glass
and matting

burn incense, suspend dream catchers
make sure it is ant- and spiderproof

In the sivoli of the mind

 

The sensuality of line, this damp rush
of releasing membranes. Indian ink reclaims its form, bleeds

in script, italics and tree shapes
          black     dark     deep
                       it drips

across borders, in severe cases – like an indoor downpour
through a cyclone-damaged roof 

 tsunami of emotions
 flooding        gushing

eyes, mouths, feathers            smudged, the writing impossible
to decipher. Hang it

high up in the sivoli of the mind

for God’s sake not in the sun! Look

this screaming of thoughts: ahhhchiiiiiiiii!

the paper buckles

clasps itself together
            bonding the faded script

diluted ink pools in thunder clouds
melancholy blooms

in sepia. Parts of it fades
with sun shame – in severe cases to invisibility

All that remains        is a pair of wings
                  remains                           wings
                         remains                           wings

 

Notes:

Sivoli: wind swirling in cheke holo, a language spoken in the Solomon Islands.

Ahhhchiiiiiiiii: exclamation when one is scared in cheke holo.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Nancy Gaselona Palmer is from the Solomon Islands. Taranaki-based Mikaela Nyman is from the autonomous Åland Islands in Finland. They’ve exhibited their poems at the Fondation Suzanne Bastien in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Nancy’s first poetry collection Rock of Strength was published in 2019. Mikaela’s two Swedish-language collections were nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize in 2020 and 2024. Her first English-language collection The Anatomy of Sand is forthcoming at Te Herenga Waka University Press in 2025. 

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