Ka Tuli

A first-draft Koa translation of the first verse of The Wind by Cat Stevens, courtesy of the shower this morning. The original lyrics:

I listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul
Where I'll end up, well, I think only God really knows
I sat upon the setting sun
But never never never never
I never wanted water once
No, never never never

And the Koa:

Ni kulu ka tuli, ka tuli ni aso

La kea sa ni lu tule, li ilo ka vala mono

Si eki ne nomu ka sua ma pahu

He nahua, he nahua

Ni na si ohi anu he hua

Na, he nahua, he nahua

With interlinear:

Ni kulu ka tuli, ka kuli ni aso

1SG listen DEF wind, DEF wind 1SG mind

"I listen to the wind, to the wind of my mind"

La kea sa ni lu tule, li ilo ka vala mono

ALL what FOC 1SG VOL come, INF know DEF god only

"Where it is that I will come to, I imagine only God knows"

Si eki ne nomu ka sua ma pahu

PERF sit LOC head DEF sun IMPF fall

"Having sat on top of the falling sun"

He nahua, he nahua

TIME none, TIME none

"Never, never"

Ni na si ohi anu he hua

1SG NEG PERF lack water TIME once

"I never lacked water"

Na, he nahua, he nahua

no, TIME none, TIME none

"No, never, never"

There are a couple areas where things could be better: the meter gets kind of overburdened with syllables in places, not unexpectedly; I used aso as my best possible translation of "soul," but that's not really what it means; and the first instance of "never, never" would be most easily interpreted as applying to the previous line, which is not what we want. Working on it. The boundaries of Koa poetics have yet to be explored...