Fetū glisten in the night sky

i.
Bae yu talem se waetman ia hemi stap
Long stret rod blong ol bubu blong yumi
Bae yu singaotem gud olsem oli haremsave
Se olgeta graon mo wota i tambu nomo

I walk through the humid forest
Giant trees at the foot of Mount Vaea (1)
Both Ancestor and responsibility
Fetū (2) glisten in the night sky

Tropical thunder rumbles over lagoons,
Estuaries, selau (3) years ago or today
Sweat trickles down my body, air, water,
Mingle on this track set by tuaʻā (4)

I pronounce faʻamalama (5) for spirits
For Vaea, whose face above the coast
Holds that fanciful writer from Alba (6)
On his death throne above our own aliʻi (7)

ii.
Samfala taem we i ren fulap gogo
Kasem maonten i kam long laplas
Ol paletuv oli karem re mo totel i save
Stap insaed long stamba blong ol

Grandmother mangroves nurture
Their daughters to float near and far
Creating new habitats despite rare
Minerals taken to exhaustion

‘Singular’ crops and minds usurp
Biomes and language areas
Altering thousands of ways that I might
Call on Majority Worlds and Histories

I raise my hands in supplication
Seed pods and reef sharks glide by
My eyes and my hands immersed in
Salt waters, whose tides unmake borderlines

iii.
Ol bigfala kenu blong ol waetman blong ovasi
Oli bin kam mo oli aot fulap olsem oli hangre
Blong kasem olgeta long ol vilij gogo, we oli no
Bin save flatem, i mestem ol stamba mo bebe

Kon-Tiki (8) and other white fallacies
Alalalalala long way from homelands
Moments stretching from tau gafa (9) into
My body born of the great salt water expanse

Machete-words slice through lineages
Pieces orbit back to each other
Across generations of tau vā (10) just as
Stones hold the memory of rivers above

The Lalolagi ʻatoa (11) is mostly liquid knowledges
Held by many more tautai (12) on celestial
Navigation voyages that hold consciousness as
I sprinkle coconut water over each vessel

iv.

Plante kaen fasin blong mekem muvi mo pikja
Blong olgeta man wiwi, amerika mo inglis i no
Save lukluk stret long Solwora blong yumi
Inomata se oli kam liv o raorao fulap yia finis

I don’t know how to climb coconut trees
Like the oiled contestants whose prowess
Is still used to promote tourism to the islands
A cover for military and real estate theft

The faʻausi (13) resounds with booms through the
valleys as my cousins scream with glee
The older cousins pound ʻulu (14) for that prized
Taufolo (15) that is so hard to make these days

I place the first spoonful on the tombs of
Tuaʻā lining the summits and fields across
Islands that were never fully assimilated into the
Exotic / Erotic Other, staunch and loving still

Glossary of Sāmoan terms:

1 Mount Vaea - mountain above Āpia related to two giants in the beginning of time, Vaea and Vaʻa.
2 Fetū - stars
3 Selau - one hundred
4 Tuaʻā - ancestors, forebears
5 Faʻamalama - precolonial dawn and dusk prayer votives to ancestors, spirits and deities
6 Alba - Latin name for Scotland
7 Aliʻi - High chiefs, goddesses, gods, deities
8 Kon-Tiki - Thor Heyerdahl’s famed raft sailing experiment to prove Great Ocean Indigenous peoples did not have celestial navigation prowess but instead sailed unidirectionally with the wind
9 Tau gafa - genealogical time as expansive
10 Tau vā - relational time as cyclical
11 Lalolagi ʻatoa - life on Earth/Ocean below the heavens
12 Tautai - guide in celestial navigation
13 Faʻausi - bamboo cannon made for entertainment
14 ʻUlu - breadfruit tree and staple food
15 Taufolo - delicacy of breadfruit balls coated in coconut caramel

Übersetzung von Yvonne Tang

 Léuli Eshrāghi (Seumanutafa and Tautua Sāmoan, Persian, Cantonese) intervenes in display territories to prioritize global Indigenous and Asian diasporic visuality, sensual and spoken languages, and ceremonial-political practices. Eshrāghi has worked closely with artists Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, asinnajaq, Torika Bolatagici, Seba Calfuqueo, among others, to realize exhibitions at the University of Queensland Art Museum, MacKenzie Art Gallery, A Space Gallery, University of New South Wales Galleries, Vancouver Art Gallery, Artspace Aotearoa, Institute of Modern Art and Gertrude Contemporary. They are Curatorial Researcher at Large at University of Queensland Art Museum, and Curator of the 8th edition of TarraWarra Biennial: ua usiusi faʻavaʻasavili at TarraWarra Museum of Art. Eshrāghi holds a postdoctoral fellowship from Concordia University, a PhD in Curatorial Practice from Monash University, and a Graduate Certificate in Indigenous Arts Management from the University of Melbourne.