Mahealani Perez-Wendt is a Kanaka Maoli writer and political activist. In 2010, she retired as an administrator and executive director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation after 32 years. The corporation is a six-attorney public interest law firm specialising in indigenous rights. She has published in many literary journals and anthologies. In 1993, she received the Elliot Cades Award for literature. Her first book of poetry, Uluhaimalama, was published in 2008. She and her husband, Ed, a native farmer, reside on the island of Maui. They have seven children and fourteen grandchildren.
A gift for Mō‘ī Wahine,
Wahine Kapu,
An offering, ho‘okupu,
From Wailuanui
Of the thundering seacliffs;
Wailuanui
Of the upright canoes;
A gift for Beloved Lili‘ulani.
This morning
Maui raised its sun
Over Haleakalā,
The Ko‘olau mountains.
The Ī‘ale‘ale winds scattered;
The great rains,
The clattering ‘ili‘ili
Were silenced.
At Moku Mana
White ribboned ‘Iwa
Soared, borne aloft,
While the teeming moi
Shone silver, silver,
Shimmering glass
Beside Long Stone
At the muliwai.
This morning
To Lakini
Where as a boy
After bright days
Tending lo‘i
He would catch a glimpse
Through forbidden window
Of red and yellow opulence,
The sacred ‘ahu‘ula, kapu,
Its feathered brilliance
Hung across
The dark parlor wall
Of Tūtū Samson’s old hale.
Even then,
St Gabriel’s Church
Loomed stark
Amidst this surround
Of holy waters.
Now Tūtū Elena’s lokelani
Imparts a rosy sweetness
To the Wailua ‘ulu
Known for its fragrance.
This morning with Carl,
Ed picked the great Queens,
Crimson ginger torches
Brightly lit
Along the meandering ‘auwai;
And from the lo‘i kalo,
Tended by Lance,
He gathered tender ‘oha,
Huli intact,
Each green heart as open
As a dutiful son’s.
Last night,
The kani of great rains;
Ed took a flask
Of anointing waters
From above the place where
Waiokamilo flows past roseapple.
From the picture window
At Wailua homestead
A thundering waterfall,
The great heart of Waiokāne
Still beating.
Sometimes I imagine
The grey corpses
Of early missionaries
Stirring lustily
In their vaults
Joining in
A rousing rendition
Of ‘Kalua’
The song from
Birds of Paradise
That Hollywood yarn
Starring bromide white
Deborah Paget
Who conjured up
A native woman
About to be sacrificed
To the great volcano god
By heathen Hawaiians
Somehow it seems fitting
Since missionaries
Brought that pilau
That they should fugue off –
Organist
Choir
Congregation
Included
(This is the night of love
This is the hour of
Kaa-luuuuuu-ah –)
Whenever ma and Auntie Liz
Sang that song
Tūtū would scold
‘A‘ole maika‘i kēlā hīmeni!
Meaning
That song is no good
Or more to the point
That song
Is not Hawaiian
Would kui lei
On the front porch
Of the old house
On Cummins Street
For boat days
Then they would sing
Ku‘u Pua i Paoakalani,
Kamalani o Keaukaha,
Kalama‘ula –
But the sweet fragrance
Of those long ago gardens
Would soon disappear
Following Deborah Paget
To cinder and ash
Mother
What did you know
How could you know
Sneaking movies
At Kewalo theatre
Except to lose
Hawaiian skin, lips, hair, heft –
Hollywood,
after all
Wasn’t about to save you
From volcano sacrifice.
In the 1940s and ’50s
All along Honolulu Harbor
The old Hawaiian stevedores
Would kanikapila
Late into the night
They would gather
At Mokauea
At Kewalo
At Kālia
Lifting sweet harmonies
To ocean, wind, stars
This was before
Walter Dillingham dredged
Caul and skull
Crushed and cured
This was before
His asphyxiate tar
Blackened everything
This was before
Union bosses
Buried dissidents
In hotel footings
Then called in the kahu
To bless them
This was when Waikīkī
Was ringed with loko i‘a
And throw nets filled with
‘Āholehole, ‘anae, ‘a‘ama
Were commonplace
Those days
Must have been sweet.
We are singing a requiem for our mother,
Our voices a shroud across this land
Wrenched we were, from Kamaka‘eha’s soft bosom,
Wretched, our grief inconsolable
We are feeble scratchings against cold granite vaults,
Grasping, tremulous as moondark trees,
Our fire-spirits burned black as cinders –
Our mouths filled with ash.
Our mother’s spirit was incandescent colour, Green
Ocean of emerald stars, mosses, living grass:
Know you our sweet-voiced mother?
Know you her children’s sorrow?
Cloudless azure, blue-veined petal:
Her blood was a firebrand night,
Her bones iridescent light;
She sang the sunlit bird.
Fire-spirits burned black as cinders,
Mouths filled with ash,
We search the empty garden, Uluhaimalama,
Papery flowers on melancholy earth. Now
Our nation,
Our rebirth.