I AM FROM A PLACE

I AM FROM A PLACE

Ancient mango trees and

Moss covered lava rock walls

A child cave, carved out of the koa trees.

Embrace my small kid time

Where brothers hunted mounta’ doves

Pink-breasted and teriyakied

Roasted on open fires

Pilgrims-in-training.

I made curtains for the clubhouse

Tidied the cooking area

Placed purple lilikoi flowers in a vase

And reveled in the perfection of home.

Home where I polished the calabashes

With kerosene so they would shine

Dust free for a week

Reminders of another time, come and gone.

The safety net secure with salted visions

Tide pools filled with possibilities

Changing clouds shaped with certainty

A foothold firm in the red dirt.

Change came slowly

Thirty-five-miles-per-hour

As we drove to Tutu-Lady’s in Kapa’a

Stopping at Halfway Bridge

To pick mountain apples and pee

Talk story with whoever stopped there

Small town, small island

We know your family.

So be good,

No shame the family

Work hard, take care, no be lazy

I going tell your ‘mada and your fada’!

Then the influx of the new

Different ways, disconnected desires

Empty church pews and colored tee-shirts

Replace the plain, pure white ones.

Beaches spotted with tourists

Mai tai’s and “Komo Mai” come enjoy!

Alo-o-o-ha!  Alo-o-o-ha!

The new sugar for sale.

The old chants replaced with

“Keep Kaaawa County, Save Nukoli’I,

Protect Kaho’olawe, Malama Maha’ulepu,

Save Waiahole-Waikane, Stop TH-3, People Not Profits”

Sand through our fingers

The land and the life slip away

Retreat to the valleys

To the dirt road, to the end.

Now Leilani wears her culture

Like the clanking gold bracelets on her arm

And Keoki tattoes his legs with

Swirls and symbols of a warrior.

Radicals!  Some call them.

Marines on the front line, I say.

Like Skippy Ioane from King’s Landing said,

“We need them all, Marines, Air Force, Army . . .”

The half-naked brother at Honaunau

Gives us stink eye for talking too loud

The weak chanter’s words

Lost in the videotape and cameras clicking

It is a war we are fighting

Trying to hold on to what fed our ancestors

Trying to remain Hawaiian in a poly-pressured world

It is a war we are loosing.

Too much land has been quiet-titled,

Too many songs have been uprooted,

The essence is diluted.

Another end is near.

Listen again to the windsong

Look again to the mountains

See beyond the horizon

They are talking to us.