Sage U‘ilani Takehiro was born in Hilo, Hawai‘i, in 1982. She has won several writing awards, including the Ernest Hemingway Award for poetry from the University of Hawai‘i. Her first collection of poetry, Honua, was published by Kahuaomanoa Press. She has worked as a columnist for the Big Island Weekly, and for the University of Hawai‘i in the development of culture-based language arts curricula.
I was a fetal spirit born in the ti-leaf womb of our mother
You uncurled my body and saw severed stems of white ginger
layered over each other
‘awapuhi ke‘oke‘o standing side by side
braided tightly in fine fibres, woven
into rope by loving hands
that dangled
on each end
You pressed your nose against me
kissed my fragrance
and opened your eyes as you returned your breath
You held me in my ti leaf cradle, saw the brown footprints of rain
and ‘A‘ala Honua that blows through the strands of your hair
You knew that I slept on a bed of ginger roots
drizzled with dirt
You watched my petals unfold and twist
eyes of white ginger
jumbled into my wrists as I rubbed them, crying
for Honua to feed my flowers
while forbidden blossoms were held firm
in the rope bones of my body
You peeled me from the ti-leaf and held me against your chest
I wrapped my arms around you and you tied my hands behind your
neck
my mana
carried by yours
I lay on top of your shoulders
listening to our life beat
through your skin
You wear my beauty
while I breathe yours
I am your lei
Adorned in lei pīkake, she converses among black stars.
He stands, hand in pocket, hand holding drink,
lei are stink to him, but she smells sweet.
He writes her a poem, draws it in the air with his
pointer finger. They stand against the Ko‘olau,
those mountain ridges that dream of Kaua‘i, an ancestor.
Onlookers feel oceans in their veins –
pulls pores out of their skin, like gold rain
on black canvas. Night falls
makes love with the light, makes mountains
glassy, makes mist steam in black moonlight.
Dreams of Kanaka cousins stretch
where a court of Gods pierce pictures
with graceful urgency –
like the blood-red memories
of Halema‘uma‘u. Pele’s pit opens
with a maile lei that welcomes death.
Fire burns through the pen of a poet
filled with red ink, flows like lava on a book of photographs,
while its author paints acrylic imagery, and smells the lei pīkake.
Fire-bread. Ulu. Less.
Famine on the land.
She comes
arising from the salty sea
adorned with a lengthy lei
of limu, crawls on to the lava rocks
raped of pūpū, ko‘ako‘a, and
aquarium fish. She stands
naked, reaches to where the moon
retires to the horizon
and pulls from it
a sheet of kapa –
fabric ripples over the ocean.
She wraps herself,
and inches inland.
She wakes the women,
with her moonflower breath
and the men, she awakes
by arousing the sun,
E ala e, she chants, eh,
no get nuts, because
you hungry. Eh, for real.
Dig a puka into our mother,
and set the rocks as a foundation.
She descends into the pit
wrapped in kapa, pressed
on top, with kukui ink and ‘ohe,
are banana leaves.
Leave me
here for three days, she told the women,
the men, and the children, who dug
and carried rock, and fashioned fire
for this pit.
They smell the smoking ulu, the food to feed
the famine, the flesh of a goddess.
When the third day arrives
they plough their fingers
through piles of dirt, peel
the banana leaves from her kapa
find the pit full with fire-bread.
A keiki takes his ulu to the shore
to share with his friends, the pūpū,
the ko‘a, and the aquarium fish,
there he sees her walking naked
into waves, he waves, a hui hou,
Hina-i-ke-ahi