A History

Something stirs in the stone you found long ago at Hapu’u
It reaches me where I dream and pray at Keokea and I answer

Then you are chest-deep in ginger, slashing through its white
 fragrance
with a machete, and proud of the pistol you carry
I have come a long ways to see you, I have come again
Our tongues are like stone, our bodies must speak

When the mist rolls down from the mountains,
when Kalahikiola is covered, when the rains come, I am there

But we are going away from each other
and the voice in the stone is cold, it is cold, it calls for water

So I set it outside, in the cold trough
and I ask the old man to read my old dream for me

Because the wind keeps lifting me, I have wings
I cannot understand why the ground falls away and away

This new home, the sky