Stonework is published by Houghton College, a Christian liberal arts college located in New York’s rural Genesee Valley. Stonework seeks a diverse mix of mature and emerging voices in fellowship with the evangelical tradition. Published twice a year, the journal reflects the arts community at Houghton College where excellence in music, writing, and the visual arts has long been a distinctive.

Stonework Journal Home

Letters to the Editor

Stonework Staff

Submission Guidelines

Editorial Philosophy

Our Favorite Links

E-mail Stonework: StoneworkJournal@gmail.com

  • Issue 6
    Poetry by Paul Willis and Thom Satterlee. Fiction and interview with Lori Huth. Essay by James Wardwell, and student poets from Christian campuses.
  • Issue 5
    Poetry by Susanna Childress and Debra Rienstra. Fiction excerpt by Emilie Griffin. Art from Houghton's 2007 presidential inauguration and a forum on women writing.
  • Issue 4
    Matthew Roth--new poems. Diane Glancy--from One of Us and an interview. John Tatter-on gardens and poetry. The Landscapes of John Rhett. Stephen Woolsey--on the poetry of Jack Clemo. James Wardwell--on Herrick.
  • Issue 3
    Poetry by Julia Kasdorf, Robert Siegel and Sandra Duguid. Fiction by Tom Noyes. The portraits of Alieen Ortlip Shea. An anthology of Australian Poets
  • Issue 2
    Thom Satterlee - Poems from Burning Wycliff with an appreciation by David Perkins. Alison Gresik - new fiction and an interview. James Zoller - Poems from Living on the Floodplain.
  • Issue 1
    Luci Shaw — new poems with an appreciation by Eugene H. Peterson & Hugh Cook — new fiction and an interview

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Cook's Pacific Crossing

Acts 17:26-27

~James Harrison

1. Rise of Morning Star, Bornubirr


To the beat of singing sticks our women dance in the moonlight

before Japara, Moon-Man, husband to all women. Girls, do not catch

Japara’s attention or look at him too closely,

or you will conceive. Collect his nautilus shells,

skeletons of dead moons,


from the dugong’s waters. Drink each month

Japara’s magic drink and you will be restored to life,

never to die in the dreaming. Girls, finish your dance,

Bornubirr, Morning Star, is coming,

his bag full of next day’s gathering for you to do.


2. Transit of Venus at Tahiti, June 3 1769


Observation of the transit of Venus by Lieutenant James Cook,

of His Majesty’s ship the Endeavour, and by Mr Charles Green,

formerly assistant at the Royal Observatory of Greenwich,

made by appointment of the Royal Society,


at King George’s Island, in the South Sea: eleven

black ink drawings of circles and crescents,

with hackles of pulsating light

above a singing horizon.


3. Admiralty Bay, New Zealand, March 31 1770


Hundreds of observations of the Sun and Moon

and one of the transit of Mercury had left Mr Charles Green

with no latitude for error: he tore up

Abel Tasman’s old parchment of one island


into two separate strips of land,

edges tattered with empty bays

and their new names scrawled

like Maori spirals across the dry skin.


4. First Contact, Anchor, Botany Bay, 1770


Sunday April 29. Wind southerly, clear weather, 2 miles in entrance, 5 fathoms.

Tree-bark huts clump around smoking fires on both points

of the shimmering bay. Our landing boats nudge

the dreaming continent and scatter the lank black-haired natives


from the empty shorelines to the dense woodlands.

Two men advance to oppose our party

with poisonous darts, inspect the glass beads and nails

we left for them, and return to collect their bundles of darts


strewn like driftwood on dappled sands. One man targets our midshipman:

three musket volleys intersect the silence of centuries,

announcing our Empire’s possession of Terra Nullius,

crimsoning with small shot the native’s shoulder. We reconnoitre


the native huts trembling with small wide-eyed children,

fresh mussels broiling on hot coals, three canoes

abandoned like empty oyster shells. Our axes begin

to numb the unyielding gum trees into submission.


5. Rock of Ages


The Endeavour nuzzles the east Australian coast,

skirts the feathered tribes of New Guinea,

and bears down on Plymouth

and the God-forsaken convicts of Governor Philip’s first fleet,


while at Uluru the night sky shakes with ragged lightning

as Japara’s people dance under warm rain,

the rock’s riven side

streaming with water,


spreading blood-red ochre

over the Great Southern Land,

till the bright Morning Star rises

to dispel the gathering darkness.