Christy Passion was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. She began writing after college, in an attempt to find out more about her Hawaiian heritage. Her poetry and short stories have won numerous awards, including an Academy of American Poets Award, the James M. Vaughn Award for Poetry and the Atlanta Review International Merit Award. She has been featured in many journals and anthologies and released her first book, No Choice but to Follow (Bamboo Ridge Press), in April 2010.
A recording of her voice, an old woman’s voice
full of gravel and lead steeped through
the car radio. She spoke of gathering limu
visitors on ships, and dusty roads in Wai‘anae.
In the distance you could almost hear
the dogs crying, the mullet wriggling in the fish bag
Nostalgic for a tūtū I never knew,
I feel the ocean pulse inside me
waves rolling over, pushing me till I leap
from this car through the congested H-1
across the noise and ashen sky
emerge beneath the rains in Nu‘uanu.
I move past the freshwater ponds
past the guava trees towards homes
with flimsy tin roofs where
my father, already late for school,
races up Papakōlea with a kite made
of fishing twine. Framed in a small kitchen
window, tūtū scrapes the meat from awa skin
for dinner tonight, wipes her hands on
old flour bags for dish cloths.
She is already small and wants to forget
I may be too late –
I have tomatoes and onion from the market, tūtū,
my hand is out, my plate is empty
and some bones for the dogs to stop their crying
do you know my name?
I am listening for your stories to call me in
my hand is out, my plate is empty
for your stories to show me the way
tūtū, do you know my name?
on viewing Choris’s portrait of Kamehameha I
It was morning when I first saw you
on a slim side wall where
someone might absentmindedly flip
a light switch. Not the centre of the gallery
with guards flanking you, cordoned off
by velvet ropes. Instead
you are housed in a small common frame
constricted by a fading red vest.
Your gray hair creates a halo effect;
a pious merchant, an ageing choirboy. Impostor.
Where are you, my king?
You are there, a shadow on the horizon
amidst a fleet of ten, a hundred, a thousand,
engulfing as the waves that surround this island,
seated on the ama, eyes perched on the shores of Waikīkī.
You are there in the tall grass of Nu‘uanu,
sun gleaming off your thighs, your chest.
Mo‘o skin helmets your face allowing
only the black pupil widening to be seen,
your calloused hand holding back the spear
anxious for the release. You are there
in the first clashes of muscle and teeth,
salt sweat drawing light on to your skin
as the ‘elepaio shrieks in the branches above.
Your spear tip pushes father and brother to the edge
Imua! Imua! and 400 more leap like mullets
into stony nets waiting below.
A pact of silence has been made by the bones left behind,
I go to those pastures to break it. I go to listen
to find you, my king. Too many have been misled by this canvas.
I imagine you would take us with you,
perhaps rolled up in a Persian rug
or tucked in hidden pockets of your luggage
carrying white shirts, socks, and underwear.
There is no need to take us out
right away, no need to show us around.
Forget about us as you do your spine or spleen.
But when old chains begin to rattle
in your mind, or on the lips of suits
lining red carpeted hallways
that no longer seem new to you
we will be there; trade winds twisting
down the Ko‘olau, fragrant fallen mangoes,
nests of salt. Let us offer you respite, let us
be a toehold in the craggy wall you climb
treading a new path to a new country.
Let us remind you of when hope
was measured in pocket change
after a long day of body surfing –
just enough for shaved ice and the bus ride home.