Its been raining for days
the kind where the sky turns grey
and you wonder if it’ll ever turn back
its 53 degrees in Hawaiʻi (which is really fucking cold, btw)
and my 6-week-old daughter is sneezing more than usual
My partner looked it up
Some babies sneeze when they are cold
so i am holding them both a little closer than normal
which is pretty damn close
at night
i close the windows
I warp her in a lei of blankets
i say her name
out loud
remind her that she is loved
safe
o wau no kou kiaʻi
I am your protector
i say
over and over until she will be ready to say it back
and her mother and i wait to hear her fall asleep
and then we settle into each-other
this is the future we dreamed of, together
from the frontlines of a movement protecting our mountain, our water, each other
and it is full of everything sweet, and beautiful, and tender
but we are no longer in a puʻuhonua
so it is also overflowing with everything i fear
The US navy is poisoning the water in Hawaiʻi
tens of thousands of gallons of diesel fuel have already spilled into our aquifer
250 million gallons remain in these WWII single wall degrading tanks
and the Navy is refusing to drain and decommission them
even after admitting to the contamination
on twitter and Instagram I see photo ops with “the best” of congressional leaders handing out bottled water and hotel vouchers to military service families
like band aids on a bullet wound
and for the first time in my life
I feel completely helpless
There is an invisible plume of poison working its way through our underground water systems
And the only people who know the exact extent of it
Don’t give a fuck about us
Our ʻāina and wai, and certainly think nothing of our children
In fact, while preparing a suit against our state for demanding they drain the tanks the US NAVY insists: “It is not the fuel in the tanks, but the fuel in the water that’s making us sick”
Let me say that again
The US navy says: “its not the fuel in their tanks, but the fuel in OUR water that is making us sick”
And I give no fucks about their lyrical gymnastics
There is no rewriting themselves out of fault
I want to ask them
how will i feed my daughter if all we have is jet fuel falling from the faucet
instead I start googling DYI home rain catchments
while I spin into a tornado of my own fear
I can only think about the decades our people have been calling to demilitarize our island and ocean
and how no one beyond our lāhui cared to listen
and now it’s the TV and twitter and Instagram all popping off
and the water is rising
and the Covid variants are multiplying
and there are guns and cops and cages everywhere
and my checking account is hemorrhaging money
and my daughter is crying
and it hasn’t stopped raining
its been days
and it’s true, i used to long for these moments
a quality storm to quiet my house and mind
me in a corner with a pen and pad of paper
but today
i have a sneezing daughter in my arms
and i know that means she is cold
so i am holding her a little closer than normal
which is pretty damn close
and i cant stop thinking about how little I can protect her
and now I know I am really a mother of a daughter
because i am made only of worry
and i am thinking about water
the wai that is now fuel
and the kai that is still rising
all around us
and the mud that is creeping closer and closer to my doorway
with each day that the deluge continues
and i am waiting for someone to come and hold me
to tell me i am loved
to say that at least for today the water is safe
I am waiting for someone to remind me that we too are worth protecting
like a mauna, like an island, like our ocean, expanding
i look into my daughter’s eyes again
o wau no kou kiaʻi
I am your protector
she says
first to the ʻāina, then to the wai, and finally to me
and for a moment
I can breathe again
Because at the very least
Malia and I did one thing right
We prepared one more wahine koa to take into battle
But I cannot help but think
is this really as far as we can dream?
