Day 21: ʻIolani Palace

First a symbol

An idol erect

Showing strength

And luxury

And civility

First always a symbol

Second to gather

To come

To be come

To dance

To sing

To remember

Second to gather

But First a symbol

Third a home

A place where to rest his head

A king with a crown created

A crown adopted

A banner of how genealogy might translate to English

Third a home

After they gathered

To the symbol

Fourth to morn

A place to return

A woman remembering the cold

And his smile

And the rain

And the man

The final note of his moʻo

The man under the gold shimmer

Fourth to morn

Within the home

Once they had gathered

To become a symbol

Fifth, a faith

A woman rising from the ash of a brother- failed

A woman within the word of god but true to her moʻo

A resistance assembled so

In music

Or constitution

Fifth a faith

That spurted from morning

Within the home

That they gathered to

To make the symbol true

Sixth a prison

Not a metaphor, no

A prison with columns turned to bars

Holding her captive

With only her song

Only her god

And her love for her kanaka

Sixth a prison

For 6 months in 1896

Sixth a devil

She endured in strength

Now a museum

A castle full of memory

not allowed to touch

what symbol remains?

Only that we once existed

And now cannot hold what is our own

With class panels

Like bars refusing the gathering to happen

The commune between mother and daughter

Not a place for the lahui to rest through the night

Not when the doors have been shut

Not when we must ask to be home

So still we mourn the loss, a symbol still standing

Mocking us of what we cannot have or touch

Now, only a reminder

A gravitation pull

To place and memory