The Forest World

The forest world I was born into has given me the poetic sensibilities. On my return early in January 2019 to Ulighembi village to film the forest world I was awakened to those sensibilities by the birds that welcomed me along the forest walk.

It was not a retrace of my journey out of the forest world, but spiritual connection I needed to make with the divided self I have burned myself with for 55 years of my life. I am divided in diametrically opposed ways and yet remain fragmented in different angles.  What could be a disaster was averted because I maintain one foot in the culture and tradition of my people and the other foot in the western world I have accepted as I journeyed out of the forest world.

Much to the deepest part of me I found myself coming alive as we entered the forest. I took in the sound, the smell, the sight, and the light and dark of the forest. It was a treasure of emotional blessing to be born in a forest world. I relished every footstep taken and every breath I took.

The space we entered in the middle of the forest was a clearing my people use as a trap to catch flying foxes as they arrive up here in the mountains. The flying foxes come up from the coast every night. The trap is a net hoisted up in the air between two towering trees that hold long poles with nets hung on them.

In my childhood I love going to the flying fox trap with my grandfather and uncles. I grew up hunting flying foxes and eating them with sago. It is a the primary form of protein for my people up in the mountains.

It was during one of the nights our trapping flying foxes with an uncle that I composed my first poetic line at the earliest age. I was told that I described the sight of flying foxes in the sky as ‘a flood of flying foxes’.  The flying foxes of the night gave me my first lines of poetry. Yes, it was that early, but most of my relatives laughed at my child language.

As it turned out one of the first short stories I have written and published was about the flying fox trap. The story entitled “The Night of Bad Luck” was published in The Old Wise Muruk: Creative Writing by Grade 12 students of Aiyura National High School 1983 and 1984.  The book was edited by Chris Sanderson and typed by Nancy Kunert with illustration by the students in the years 1984 and 1985.

If anything it was the Creative Writing Course that Mrs Chris Sanderson taught in 1983 and the Expressive Arts Class I had with Mrs Roselyn Everest that brought out the creative part of me.  The rest is a journey of creative and intuitive explorations leading to a career as an academic, scholar, and teacher of literary studies. I have responded to every echo and every sound in that wooded world.

I even studied the plants and their uses as medicine and for other purposes. The forest will remain an important foundation in my subconscious world.

In the second collection of poems Hembemba: Rivers of the Forest (2000) I explored the forest world through poetry.

Rivers of the Forest

Through the present darkness

Youthful rivers of forests appeared

Lured dances of night

A young lady passed in rhythmic stride

A young heart on a boat of passion rode

Hooked on the wind of unknown desires

Rode nowhere without guaranteed fares

Learnt tricks of savannah elders

Every man before me

Passed through the same rivers

There is no escape

Fallen leaves of seasons tell

Colours of time their tales

I have watched rivers rumble

In different colours of history

I lowered the sails of my boat

The wind took me to distant shores

Beyond doors of my childhood

Before the village ceremonial ground

The days of innocence

Crawling and walking alone

Improved my skills without attention

Rivers of the forest swell

Swallow peoples of little thoughts

Leave art to speak of endurance in life

Face the challenge before me

Without the dark tales of misfortune

To the rivers of the forest.

The poem appears in the first section of the book: River I, which has the theme: “Spirits of the river/Form with unknown darkness/On their return is life.”

In the Nagum Boiken language the phrase “Hembemba Yawinangu “ is used to describe the land, forest, garden, and sago growth as the source of one’s life sustenance. These material things give the life to people living in the forest world. It is an important concept that my people use to give authority to their lives as forest people.

The poetic exploration of the forest in my work suggests that I am from the forest world, but who has journeyed out to the other “forest” worlds beyond the Sepik world I claim my roots are planted deep in the earth.

Return to the forest world gave me a new sense of who I am. I am no longer in the forest world, but that world is in me. As the saying goes you can take a boy out of the forest, but you can’t take the forest out of him.

I am now left to think about the vulnerability of the forest world. We are the custodians of the forest world. We must never let logging operations to destroy this world that has so much to offer this earth.

Making the spiritual connection to land is important to me as a writer. I feel that I stand between the world of light and darkness. Light is the only realized when we protect our forest world and darkness is when we allow destruction of our forests through illegal logging operation.

Forest will forever remain the cradle of my birth in this world. I will always return to my forests world any time.