See you on the Mauna

 What makes something sacred? ⠀

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Is Mauna Kea sacred because she is the highest point in nā kai ‘ewalu and the broader pacific?⠀
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‘Ae.⠀
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Is Mauna Kea sacred because of its connection to the genealogy of our people and our Akua Wākea? ⠀
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‘Ae. ⠀
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Is Mauna Kea sacred because of our pilina to her. Because of the unmeasurable ways she has protected us, fed us, loved us?⠀
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‘Ae.⠀
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Is Mauna Kea sacred because she represents our ea, our sovereignty, our right and ability to advocate for ourselves and our ‘āina?⠀
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‘Ae. ‘Ae. ‘Ae. ‘Ae. ⠀
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Mauna Kea is sacred for all of these reasons and more. But today, this week, this month, this year Mauna Kea is sacred because we gather to protect her. Because we consecrate her in our resistance to American force, occupation and colonialism. Mauna Kea is sacred because we show up. She is sacred because we band together as our kūpuna always have. Mauna Kea is sacred because my kūpuna stood with yours and today I stand with you. And because of the many ways we continue to stand, continue to Kupa’a I ke aloha ‘Āina... we make Mauna Kea sacred again and she us. ⠀
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I am proud to stand against the thirty meter telescope because Manono stood against the fall of the ‘Aikapu, because Pi’ilani stood against the provisional government, because Daisy Keali’iai’awa’awa stood against the annexation, because aunty Loretta Ritte stood against the bombing of Kaho’olawe, because Haunani-Kay Trask stood and said, “we are not American”. ⠀
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I stand because our children will live in this ‘āina, will be fed by this aina, will aloha this ‘āina and will stand, like we did. I stand because I am privileged enough to know that standing is what Hawaiians do. Standing is what Hawaiians do. Standing is what Hawaiians do. Until the very last aloha aina. ⠀
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See you on the mauna. ⠀

Pale

•

Pale. 

1. nvt. To shield,  defend,  shield, protect,  resist;

2. vt. To deliver, as a child.

Again and again 

He tells me 

How these niho 

Will pale me from what I cannot see

And all of a sudden 

Between the rhythm of my swelling skin and breaking breath

The memory of you comes into perfect vision

•

I think

of all the times I’ve ever said:

“I never saw you coming”

•

And with each strike 

Each drop of blood and ink 

Spilling over and wiped away

Something new is born in me

And I forgive 

Us both

a little more 

•

Just enough

To stand

  a little more upright

To walk 

a little less afraid 

To love

on the other side of all this knowing 

Tonight

 Tonight 

I speed agsianstthe backdrop of the Rocky mountains

My mind racing through the chronology of our pilina 

And her voice cuts through the stereo 

“It’s not simple to say”

And so simply and fully, 

i fall back into your memory 

And now 

I am not so much snow capped Rocky Mountain ridge lines

But New York cities lights and falling skies 

I am the woman weeping in your arms 

As she sings

“I still remember that girl”

I am that girl you called your love 

Over and over until i forgot my own name

And this is how most days go 

I TRY TO FILL THE SPACE

With things that will make me feel like home

But everything about me that i love still has your scent, your smile

Your kiss 

And some days i find the balance between lying and living in this new world 

where it seems maybe we never happened 

Maybe my memory 

Is just the story i wrote wishing you into my world 

And then of course, you text me 

As if to check 

If i am still here 

If i am remembering 

And of course, i am 

So i weep

Because even though it is you, reaching towards me

I am here and you are not and will not be

And again 

It’s just me alone with our memory 

And then i get caught 

In that dark spot called here and forgotten 

Called never happened

Called replaced

Called wondering what i was, if i am no longer

And now i am caught in the undertow of questioning every word you ever offered

While i watch you slide your smile across the skin of the sea to someone else 

My own heart breaking in your hands

On repeat 

And i am tempted to call it all a bad dream 

A fantasy 

A diversion in your real story 

And then she sings again

“She is gone but she used to be mine” 

And like that i know there was love 

Here 

I can still sense its taste 

On the back of my tongue 

Even if it isn’t here 

Anymore

I can still see the whole sky 

Light itself on fire 

From the reflection in your eyes

And so these days

I try to carve away all the excess

Everything that isn’t, wasn’t, and wont be love

Sometimes I get a little liberal with my own carving 

I Watch it 

Us 

Me 

melt away 

But I try not to rewrite the past 

In my insistence on watching it all in reverse 

Try to remember the night i held you

In our hotel room and you said you were ready

How i crumbled in your arms and you just held me

I try to hold the moment 

We woke to the sky falling outside of our window

All of New York City just putting on a show for your smile

Or every time we made love and our Kupuna sent showers to celebrate us

Or the Anuenue that stretched across Mauna lua bay above you

As we chased the sunset across the face of leahi 

I know there was love

Because i remember the salt of your skin on mine

When you asked me to take you home

One last time

So i hold the love

Like i used to hold you

I remember

I remmeber

I remember 

Alone in the dark 

With the stereo on loud

So scared of all this life inside of me

I Write the poem

Listen to the soundtrack of our past 

The Sara, maroon 5, the Jason mraz

Again and again 

Until i can almost hear your voice

Until its you sitting beside me in this car

Until you reach out to pull my hand into yours

Until you tell me again, how i need to believe that you will always come back 

To me

That I am worth remembering 

I break under the weight of those words

And yet, i keep holding 

Keep remembering our little piece of forever

Even if you choose not to

E kuʻu mau haumana

I learned at an early age

That the best way to teach

Is simply to tell the truth 

This is what iʻve always tried to do with you

And isnt that the point of moʻolelo 

To share something real

That might resonate 

That might make change

That you might find truth in too

And so My kupuna believe

Truth comes from darkness

From pō

They say 

Comes ʻoiaʻio 

The truth is 

I’ve been struggling 

Knowing this.. I guess I could say that these days

I feel saturdated in truth

Sometimes I wake realizing 

I am not quite ready to imagine legacy

The dance from child to sibling to parent

Of a generation of schoalrs who will supass and outlive me

Thankfully 

But this again is a part of the practice of being worthy of teaching

This was always a part of the duty

Recently, A friend reminded me 

That before I was born I agreed to the life laid before me

So here I am 

Weaving baskets of moʻolelo 

Preparing to carry you in 

Like my kupuna and kumu did for me

But whats the truth?

Sometimes kuleana is heavy

Kaumaha

Sometimes it marks the body in black ink 

Sometimes it bleeds through the skin 

Sometimes I forget the right way to carry it 

To walk under it

To speak in my own voice 

Sometimes I am ashamed

Of the ways I do not live up yo my own names 

Other times

I feel graditude for all the smalls waYS YOU ALL HAVE FORGIVEN ME

IN SMILES, IN WIRTING

IN YOUR OWN SOLLILOQUIS 

Filling THE spaces I didnt quite know how to dance in

For all the ways you forgive me for all I am lacking 

The truth is I have spent 24 years preparing for these momenets 

To read and write and talk about the truth with you 

The truth is 

I was born to the greatst kumu who ever lived

My father

And his 

And mothers moving on for generataions

And an ʻāina and moana that has loved me beyond my own meaaasure

I have been given more moʻolelo then I could ever deserve

Than I could ever carry

And here I am 

At the precipice of a moment 

Meant to understand my own function 

Standing before you 

With more questions than answers 

In a time where our lack of understanding has the gravest consequesnces 

And most of the time

The truth is 

I fail to do it all justice

So instead 

Here is the lesson I should have led with 

When I was a child

Moʻolelo was the most intimate gift to be offered 

It meant you were worthy 

It meant you were loved 

It meant you were cherished

It meant I want to offer you my eyes

For you to see a bit of this world like I do 

For a moment 

In complicated fashion 

But with aloha for everything around you 

And so the truth?

I wonder most nights

That even if I wasnt the best version of myself this semester

If you still got to hold the magic 

Still got to sit in awe and wonder

For this moʻolelo you are now a part of 

And always have been 

2000 generations in the making 

As old as a sea of islands 

Still growing 

I wonder 

If you were moved

If we were moved

If we can continue to move those around us who fail to see what we do 

So If nothing else I hope you 

Remember these truths 

Remember the gifts of bravery and imagining 

That we stand on the shoulders of giants 

That everything that has ever been done 

Was once impossible 

And the only way we know

All the amazing tranformations that it can be done

Is because someone somewhere carried the moʻolelo 

And loved someone enough to share it 

Like I have hopefully done 

With you 

Questions from the Moon

 I take the long way 

Drive slow 

With the music in low 

Try my best to remember 

As little as I can 

I chase the moon

All the way home 

And when I catch her shine

Like the secret that was once your smile 

she becomes 

the only body 

The only gravity that can pull me away 

From you 

And for a moment 

An hour 

An evening

I am free 

And then 

Like a flood 

Suddenly and all at once 

I wonder 

Are you looking too?  

Holding

I hold the space 

The silence 

The distance between 

Every part of us that was once Pili 

I tell myself the sacred story called letting go 

Every morning

I say your name until 

The water of you washes over me 

Until I am submerged I the memory of you

Until I learn to move 

Under the weight of that love 

I become a stranger to myself in your company 

A woman of all limbs 

But no feelings 

I am the stoic figure called forgotten 

And every minute the breath I caught from the back of your throat 

Grows further away 

So I turn in your direction 

Hoping to catch another 

Or perhaps your glance 

But as far as I can tell 

You never look back 

When you Left

  When you left 

And All the things I said instead

Became pohaku caught in the back of my throat

Became the ink stretched across my chest

Became the weight 

You called heavy 

I just knew 

As aloha 

I just knew 

As everything I’d have to carry 

To have a chance at loving you 

Heolimeleikalani

 There is no aloha

Like the warmth of your voice 

Wrapped around my name 

So When you take the time 

To sing the syllables out loud 

& pull my mele past the surface 

There is no doubt 

That I am a song 

Composed for you 

And the more and more I am yours 

The more I become 

This magnificent melody 

The more I sing to the heavens 

Just as I was made to 

No one seems to pull the meld out of it 

Quite the way you do 

It’s never felt as much mine as it does when it’s pressed between your lips 

Remember

 Remember the evening 

we turned waimānalo kai ko’o to silk?  

How we glided over her skin in perfect unison 

How she showed her truest blues 

and we were called like children

 to bathe in her magic 

Remember how the  wa’a was moved?

How we were too? 

How she pulled all the old melodies out of me

 that night I held you close against my chest 

& felt the ocean breathing through your skin

These are the moments i recall

 anytime i watch the water pull

Anytime our moana’s music dares me to dive deep

I remember your subtle cadence 

your breath on the back of my neck

The soft confidence in your voice 

The pull and push of your hips

Telling me 

It’s easy, 

Just dance

With me 

& I do 

& I do 

& I Always do 

Rhyme and Rhythm

First i waited for the waves to roll another way

For the current to pull instead of push 

for the tide to pitch and bring you back

I held on tight on the nights they did

Hoping it would last

And on the nights they didn’t i waited for a different present

So long

Til i ended up 

Wishing for a different past

And then again by morning you were gone 

so i wrote 

And wrote

And wrote until i ran out of words

Until all my love was wrapped in rhyme and rhythm 

something you might think beautiful 

In the mornings I waited for the ink to dry

Then i tore the page 

And started again

Each time i got further and further from the start 

But i kept trying anyway 

By the afternoon I was waiting for the wind to blow

For the rain to come crashing down 

For my driveway to flood

Again

For the water to bring you home

And when it didn’t 

I waited for your call 

Your text

any way For you to say i love you

Again 

Without being prompted 

And when you didn’t I spent my evenings waiting 

for you to want me 

For the quiet to settle 

& For your loneliness to catch me in your attention

And when it did, 

I said to myself 

She’s back again 

Until you weren’t 

And one night when you took the ocean away 

I got tired of waiting 

And i stopped believing in water 

And salt 

And tides 

And currents

And rain 

And wind

And you 

And you

And you didn’t even notice 

And carried on 

Anyway 

And the catchy motivational meme I read 

said: Not everyone you lose is a loss

said: those who want to stay will stay

said: that just because i love someone doesn't mean iʻm supposed to be with them 

said: someone can love you and not be ready

said: you never have to convince someone to do the work to be ready

said: the right person would fight for me

said: i would be okay

said: let it go and let it be

said: i will not be undone

said: i will not be undone

said: i will not be undone 

I read them all and wrapped my heart in whatever rhyme and rhythm i had left

But I’m not sure I believe in any of that anymore either

Patience

You always had 

The worst time 

Waiting for the waters to still 

Always wanted 

To wade too early 

Into her rough 

But what if 

You could quiet your own storms

 long enough to learn the difference 

Between the first pull of a rising tide 

And distance 

What if 

You could make yourself a shore 

Full of all the desire and wanting 

You ever needed 

So you weren’t left 

Always Wanting 

Palms facing god 

Waiting for rain 

And her current to change