– 27 –

XX Masai Ariana

1
Murray, 1861-1940

However, I do not suppose
it matters much—
the Japanese will have not only Papua
and New Guinea, but
Australia and New Zealand
in another fifty
years.

Thank God, I
shall be dead.

2
Aristocratic, autocratic, Labor-
inclined, witty,
intellectual & athletic,
Catholic,
married &
alone, kind
& responsive
to the Papuan people,
elderly &
attractive to women. A
misfit
in his own society, he
found his kingdom
in someone
else's.

– 28 –

3
For forty days and nights
watch fires burnt
on the hills around the town.

On the forty-first day
thousands of Papuans arrived in Hanuabada
for the death feast.

They lined the hills.

They sat in silence;
the only sound the tapping
of a thousand native drums.

4
3 February 1942

The first bombs fell
on Moresby.

Fires, fires
and fires on the hills.

Look Murray,
the Japanese.