LOVELY LADIES OF LEHUA

LOVELY LADIES OF LEHUA WRITING PROJECT

Waiting for the babies to arrive

You are flamboyant, a float on an ocean of dreams

You are the anchors in your classroom, in your home

You are the harbor of safety,

Your embrace, a ship to sail on and come home with.

Your song filters through grandmother’s plumeria tree

Is wrapped up in red ti and puakenikeni offerings.

Your voice sure as echoes from that other time

Singing soprano, lilting chicken skin.

Sing again, the joy reverberates, resounds.

You have come from child-spaces rich with wonder

Granite garments, oasis of opportunities

Your child-scapes murmur with creamy clouds

Burst with grandparents’ goodness.

Remember, your memories cherished.

Count the moments as marquise-cut diamonds

Words broken apart and put back together

Between the pages of “Hatchet”

Between the marungay and pickerel plants

Cut opened as squids, your ink marks the spot.

Lovely ladies of Lehua

You are the red birds with curved tongues

that weave baskets of patience

at Honaunau, at Kaloko Honokohau

At Kealakehe, you plant dewdrops of love.

                                                                                    --Tamara Wong-Morrison