Tramontina

By Dr. Andrew Moutu

You didn’t fall out of the skies

You came from somewhere on the ground-from a house or a store.

Made with human hands

To replace and extend the limits of human hands.

You are retrieved and taken in from the sides.

And come into the center.

Where the mind and the body become defined with the might of lateral dexterity.

Chop and cut, hack and slice, the bloody mutilation. Your actions rehearse a forethought.

Today a bird, the warbler of Waigani, got into your hands and died. The warmth in the body of the bird will fade and her body will be cold soon.

The dogs of Waigani are on their backs, punching with their feet in the air. These friends of man are sleeping upside down, wandering.

The skies of Waigani have seen the black fumes of wrath and fury.

Warmongers are running with Tramontina in their hands. Re-enacting a forethought.

Death is long and life is brief in the hands of Tramontina.

The seas of Taurama and Konedobu are rehearsing a song of rage. The seas might give us *gwarume mase* in this night of Tramontina.

Why did we left those songs of rage still coming in from the silent waves of our seas?

Maybe we were fooled or maybe we are deafened by the solemnity of the raging Tramontina?

Swarms of flies plea for grace at the sores on our feet. Maybe the songs of rage have become our pretty songs?

On occasions a few Bougainvilleans can dazzle us with a dance of Tramontina.

Yesterday’s afternoon sun outside the two shopping malls, the stadium, and in front of the City Hall of Waigani, was sickening with the dangling sound and sight of Tramontina.