The shell of the lychee cracked
and opened in Edmund’s rusty hands.
Juice flowed from his index,
over dry rough palms.
Liquid covered his skin, lingered on his finger,
leaving a smooth path. Smothering, covering
years of weathering,
working in Pepekeoe Plantation.
He handed me the fruit, flesh freshly exposed.
Old enough to open it on my own
but always tasted better from his soft touch.
We looked away from the volcano.
Big Island’s skin had the scars of humanity,
threaded with untouched patches,
still pure and clean.
I found him looking back at Kilauea.
Rocks glowing with heat, melting and falling
into a cesspool of its own kin.
“Grandpa, will you always live in Hilo,
so I can visit you when I get old?”
“Son, Pele sits in her crater,
creating land to live on.
Lengthening the reach of the beach
requires waves of reckoning. Bam-bai
you can see the lava coming, it may be slow
but it is inevitable.”
I still visit him, buried in the veteran’s cemetery.
Pele didn’t take him;
plantation work didn’t take him,
a Nazi sniper-shot to the face didn’t take him,
old age didn’t take him, smoking stole him.
Adam and Ewa
Blood drains away in warm rain,
where explorers exploit their fame,
using God’s name to introduce shame
acting out again the original sin.
The Pacific Ocean built a new Eden;
Pele planted seeds in volcanic gardens.
In this paradise no snake set foot,
until the legend of a light skin god,
Lono, was mistook for Captain Cook.
Sandwiched Isles in-between sky and kai,
were healing from a ferocious fight.
Hawaiian vs. Hawaiian.
Different islands fought for control.
Warriors perished over the cliffs of the Pali,
where night-marchers still patrol the valley.
Kamehameha the victor, made Oahu home to his throne
To watch over the land but castles don’t last long on sand.
The tide brings big canoes with wings.
The haoles, with sea-rusted halos came over in ships.
There was no Hawaiian title for ownership.
The land was a community not a commodity.
Their gods provided for the people,
and let those loyal to royal toil the soil.
The new white breed fueled by greed not to feed
their needs plotted deeds where Hawaiians planted seeds
which would pave the way, of putting a price
on what gave Hawaiians life, their aina.
Besides the whites were teaching them how to pray.
If only these so-called savages obeyed
they would be saved….
instead they were enslaved.
Left the laws of the kapu for the ten commandments
and bowed beneath their biblical rant,
almost losing their hula and their chant:
‘I ku mau mau
I ku huluhulu
I ka lanawao’
It took many to build a canoe and carry it to water
It took many to feed sons and daughters
It took many in a brutal slaughter
To unite these islands and have them stolen from another.
Queen Liliokalani locked in the tower of Iolani
a kidnapped Repunzzle, forced to let down her heirs.
The kingdom finally fell, united to the states
annexed as a territory,
the islands cried on the queen’s last mele.
A weakened Pele whispered to her people,
who could not hear her.
Steered away by those that never feared her.
A god is laid to waste when the follower’s faith is replaced,
the pale face has made a ghost out of your goddess of fire.
Even if my desire was to enact revenge,
I’m not strengthened by your offerings any more,
my power is poor.
My lava does nothing but make more shore.
So I live in this volcano evermore.
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