Burnt Statues

By Anne Whitehouse

I The Moai

It’s a miracle they are here at all,

on a solitary island surrounded by ocean,

thousands of miles from anywhere,

with a volcanic crater at its center.

Monumental sculptures of long faces

carved from volcanic tuff,

standing eight to forty feet high,

the moai reach deep into the ground,

hiding and revealing secrets

of the people who made them.

Rapa Nui—a seafaring people

who came from Polynesia

a thousand years ago.

How did they find this speck

of an island in the vast sea?

Were they blown off course?

Was their journey intentional?

Their coming is a mystery.

By the nineteenth century,

the population was decimated,

killed by European diseases

or forced into slavery.

Today, the descendants live

in a vortex of climate change—

storms and surges, coastal erosion.

Trash from four continents

washes up on their shores.

On a ranch last year,

a fire broke out. Some know

who set it, but they aren’t telling.

Wind spread the flames

to the sacred crater.

A hundred moai were scorched.

The moai are not eternal.

They can be rebuilt. A century ago,

their significance was forgotten.

Reclaiming their collective memory,

an oppressed people became free.

They recognized the moai

as representations of their ancestors

who walked the same land

they walk now, breathed the air,

and watched the ocean.

II Rapanui pianist, Mahani Teave

As a child, I never felt isolated.

I thought my island

was the whole planet.

My introduction to piano

came from a visiting teacher.

People would arrive for a year

and teach music, theater, dance.

Then they’d leave.

To advance my artistic dream,

I, too, left the island.

In Santiago, Cleveland, and Berlin,

I learned from great artists.

I might have had a concert career,

but I didn’t wish to perform

every other day in a different place.

Guided by my teachers,

my goal was always to find

the maximum beauty in music.

Ten years ago, I returned to Rapa Nui

to create a music school on the island.

I felt no one else would be able

to create this school.

I was the one who had studied

with the world’s best musicians.

This was something I had to do.

Everyone here loves being here,

and those who leave long to return.

Nothing is truer to being human

than art and music.

Here on the island,

there is artistic blood in everyone.

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