In an empty church house
We remembered
Together
All the abundance that never forgot us
We sat as the night grew deeper around us
Until we could feel creation again
And when the morning arrived
With her heat
We gathered:
Our courage
Our kupuna,
Our hopes,
and inspirations
We honored these moments by singing
Mele into an ʻĀina that never forgot our ea
And with our lima turned down
And our moʻolelo churning between us
We grew:
Loʻi
ʻike,
kaiāulu,
AND each other
Until we overflowed
Mud between our toes and
Laughter spilling over our lips
And when we were weak,
unsure of our words and footing
We leaned into the unknown and each other
Found aloha in the sturdy offering of a hand, a shoulder,
a quiet, but reassuring sigh
We brought the ʻulukoa back to the kai at oneawa
Storming our bodies across kailua beach
Our brown skins simmering in the shore break
The sky opened itself above us
Nodding in her approval
Welcoming us back home
So when Malia asked us to
Share a time we fell deeper in love with our lāhui
Each and everyone of us had too many examples that come to mind
We scrubbed words on a whiteboard that taunted us in christian scripture
And so today as we we remove our trace
from the hale that held us
We carefully wash every corner clean
leaving only the verses of our aloha, inscribed
Color expo ink carving our memory into another white background
Another kailua, waikīkī, University of Hawaiʻi,
Another place that been transformed to insist we do not belong
That tells us that we are too brash,
our ʻike too native,
our grief to deep,
our joy too loud…
too strong, too kanaka to be right
But today we practice the ancient resistance of staying
We leave our Moʻolelo
A simple and insistent reminder
that no one can ignore
We are still here
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