Here are all the ways the story is the same

 The story always begins at the takutaimoana, the shoormal

where sea meets sand [1]

 

The story always reminds us that there are

rocks

on the shore [2]

where they first meet


(The story always skims across the how and why of their meeting,

notes that he stumbles upon her by ‘chance’ [3])

The story always includes

a seal-skin

a sea-dress

a cloak

a cap or

a kākahu

a covering which means that

 

 

the story always tells us that she is uncovered

on discovery

 

The story always gives her kind as selkie silkie selchie seal-maiden finn-folk maighdeann-ròin maighdean-mhara [4]

The story always lingers on how

álainn ātaahua beautiful bonnie bòidheach lovely

she is

 

The story always centres on an entrapment, a betrayal [5]

 

The story always reminds us that there are

children [6] she will leave behind [7]

 

 

The story always ends with her returning to the sea.

 

____________________________________________________________

[1]

It is always nighttime, it is always moon-lit, it is always

just                              dark                              enough

 

[2]

The rocks are where things can be hidden ­­– people

and shed skins

and secrets

 

[3]

the intent, it’s implied, comes later, so we can’t assign fault

[4]

but never her name

 

[5]

Sometimes the betrayal is at the beginning

in the stealing of seal-skin, sometimes near the end

with the trickery and trap of cooked kai

but it is the same betrayal every time:

he  stops  her  returning to her kin

[6]

The story forgets to remind us that children are made

of earth and salt-water

and belong to both-worlds & neither-world

always caught inbetween

 

[7]

The story forgets to remind us that sometimes

she takes them with her

The story forgets to remind us that

this is her choice to make

Arielle Walker (Taranaki, Ngāruahine, Ngāpuhi, Pākehā) is a Tāmaki Makaurau-based contemporary artist, writer and maker. Her practice seeks pathways towards reciprocal belonging through tactile storytelling and ancestral narratives, weaving in the spaces between, all salt and seal-skin.

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