Pihatuwak Se

If you are not coming – if you would just tell me
I will stand unshaken before all the pain I bear
if my heart aches – I will not even ask
the reasons you gave, I will bear them all

The memory that became a teardrop,
why come close and scratch it open again?
the love I felt has died and gone

Your heart, like a feather, drifted far away
slipped from me and went off, somewhere else
what can I do but sit and watch?
all this long time I chased along behind you
and now I am too weary
so I will take my leave and stay apart

Watching carefully, I take a pause
the love I walked to find across a bed of thorns
I went on believing it had no meaning, all that time!
step down without weighing on the flower; you, be slow to fall

Dark is the past I have lived through,
do not come close and scratch it open again
the love I felt has died and gone

Your heart, like a feather, drifted far away
slipped from me and went off, somewhere else
what can I do but sit and watch?
all this long time I chased along behind you
and now I am too weary
so I will take my leave and stay apart

This is a song of letting go, sung by someone worn out from loving one-sidedly. He opens with a quiet, dignified plea: if you are not coming back, “just tell me,” and I will “stand unshaken before all the pain,” ask nothing, and bear whatever reasons you give. There is no anger here, only exhaustion and a wish for honesty.

The title image is the heart of it. “Your heart, like a feather, drifted far away,” pihaatuwak se, light as a feather, weightless and impossible to hold, floating off “somewhere else.” Against that, he has spent “all this long time chasing along behind you,” and the confession that follows is heartbreakingly plain: “now I am too weary, so I will take my leave and stay apart.” Sometimes love ends not in a fight but in tiredness.

The most striking verse is his backward look at the whole thing: the love he “walked to find across a bed of thorns,” rosa katu, the thorns of the rose, endured for the sake of the bloom, and the bitter realization that “I went on believing it had no meaning, all that time.” He asks only that she not keep reopening “the memory that became a teardrop,” because “the love I felt has died and gone.” What the listener is left with is the tender, grown-up sadness of walking away from someone you chased too long, choosing peace over the pursuit, and asking the past to finally leave you alone.