Frontline Pilina in the Malu of the Mauna

 

It’s Wednesday
And I find myself standing
In the shadow of a mauna that loves me like islands emerging from the sea Like a sky scattering herself in stars
Like a lāhui kanaka growing

I’m standing in the malu of a movement
That’s captured a generations heart and attention I find myself
Here
My body
A kīpuka expanding
Into Pele’s pāhoehoe grip
Holding

holding holding

my quiet
And in my silence I hear her wailing

It’s Wednesday and I find myself Without searching
Arms linked with a line of women I barely know

But was destined to love
A line of women stretching back for thousands of generations
Pō, turned light, turned pūko’a turned slime turned gods in a time of mere men

Who more fierce then these bodies of islands These bodies of women
These moku turned ‘āina
Spilling into our sea of islands

These hands stretched out Feeding a generation Accustomed to starvation

It’s Wednesday and I am holding her arms Like I am holding this mo’olelo
Strong but tender enough to let both breathe Deep

I am praying to be a wahine worthy of this moment Worthy of these hands
Holding me
right back

And then Aunty tells me
We are the generation they always dreamed of So it’s Wednesday and now I am weeping

And every kūpuna that ever fought, ever cried, ever died so that we would know for sure how to stand
Is singing through me
And somehow

Somehow i am still standing Arms linked in a line of women Holding me
And all I have to offer them

Is this story
That is incomplete