Tell me how to fill this quiet

 Tell me how to fill this quiet 

This waiting 

This time expanding 

Seconds, turned minutes, turned hours 

How strange this discipline 

That has us anxiously waiting for the violence 

Coming for our bodies 

Has us counting the days 

Since the last assault 

Has us hoping 

Today is the day we will stand again 

How compelling this aloha

For a mauna 

That was so shortly ago 

A stranger 

So recently unfamiliar 

And now 

With each waking I trace her spine

   into my morning horizon like a lover 

And because of her 

I wonder 

What kind of loneliness will arrive in my departure

What of me is being so firmly planted here that will have to be left behind 

That will no longer be mine to keep 

How much of this fullness and knowing 

Will turn to cavern 

Will turn to question 

Will turn me inside out 

Longing for this pilina again 

What violence waits for me 

Caught in the noise of civilization 

Praying for when I can come back 

To her 

This place 

And all the aloha 

I never knew I needed 

But now can’t seem to live without