Saturday, June 30, 2012

While i leave you, Love

A poem as i, Hi'iaka, leave you my Hōpoe

I will sing for you 
only one song 
in my departure
only one promise in this severing 
that leaving
with you behind
will be my truest sign of aloha for you
that nothing 
will ever eclipse the 
the shadow that shakes from this lehua
the way the yellow of it 
stills the chill settling in your blood

you and i never were 
a'ole
we always are 
chose instead of the stillness of past 
the dance found in this foreest
threw every part of these temporary bodies into this home
into this valley 
this crater that grows us 
in every direction

E Ku'uipo,
watch the parts of us as we feather into flowers 
your lips 
how they fold into this soil
how you are every part of this home i love
and fear to leave
watch the way growth happens all around
and how the birth of us turns me to song
turns you to dance
turns us both 
together

forget that i am leaving
forget that there is more beyond the walls of this aina
this ahu
extending into sky 
remember the calm of this movement 
the forevever of this voice 
and know
that i will return
either in body
or in song
so that our dance
shall never end




Thursday, June 7, 2012

Becoming

im starting to wonder
what it might be like
for words to find their way spilling from my lips again
something about me
stopped working
when you left
some part of me
forgot the heal of words falling out of my body
like whitewash

still i am called a poet
by all my friends
and the strangers who think they know me
and the words
feel like grass sometimes
against the back of my neck
remind me i am uncomfortable in this silence
in this position
where i am not producing anything
but discomfort
i wonder
what will be the final
difference
between
what is locked inside
and what finally
becomes
of
this
page