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.
das da one sistah
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