Haunani-Kay Trask is a writer, scholar, speaker, indigenous leader and human rights organiser. Trask holds a PhD degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin. She is professor of Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawai‘i, and served for ten years as the director of the University of Hawai‘i ‘s Center for Hawaiian Studies. She is also one of the founders and leading members of Ka Lāhui Hawai‘i, the largest native sovereignty organisation in Hawai‘i. She has represented Hawai‘i’s indigenous people at the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples in Geneva, and at numerous indigenous gatherings across the world. She has published many articles on the struggle for self-determination of Hawai‘i’s indigenous people, books including From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai‘i and the collections of poetry, Light in the Crevice Never Seen and Night is a Sharkskin Drum. She also served as a scriptwriter and co-producer of the award-winning documentary film Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation.
How is it
your black Hawaiian hair,
flowing in red-tipped waves,
a cloak of fine, burnt feathers
from our ancient past,
now rests on white
coffin folds, false satin
finish in the gloss,
as if our people couldn’t
tell by their touch
the undertaker’s hand, as if
the gleam of your magnificent
by the waxy smell
of missionary lies.
How is it now
you are gone,
our ali‘i dismembered,
their mana lost,
we are left
with broken bodies, blinded
children, infected winds
from across the sea.
How is it,
our bones cry out
in their infinite dying,
the haole and their ways
have come to stay.
Born from the chest
of Haumea, mo‘o
woman of kuapā,
lizard-tongued goddess
of Hawai‘i:
Nāmakaokaha‘i,
sister of thunder
and shark –
Kānehekili,
Kūhaimoana
elder of Pele,
Pelehonuamea.
Kino lau on the wind,
in the yellowing ti,
sounds of Akua
awaking in the dawn:
eyes flecked with fire,
summoning her family
from across the seas.
Sharks in the shallows,
upheaval in the heavens.
From the red rising mist
of Kahiki, the Woman of the Pit:
Pele, Pele‘aihonua,
travelling the uplands,
devouring the foreigner.
where the fern
clings, lingering
above slit
rock, shadows
musky in hot
perfume
… the cries
of tight-winged birds
flickering tongues,
damplit skin,
the seep
of summer
thirst
in memory of Noa Tong Aluli, Hawaiian of the land, 1919–1980
today, I went to the grave
no flowers, no tears, no words
the wind came up slightly
from the ocean
salt and warmth
you were the earth
as you are now
I cannot imagine
your life, being
younger by a generation:
all those children, all
that work, so much silence
in the end, your going
was familiar: a family
trial, burning nightly
certain to the bitter end
your sons, your wife
your daughter
myself
and now, there is
only earth, the salt
wind, a small
story of many years
I came to understand
but only the sea remains
constant and dark
O Noa, we don’t
live like you anymore
there is nothing
certain in this world
except loss
for our people
grieving
I lament the abandoned
terraces, their shattered
waters, silent ears
of stone and light
who comes trailing
winds through
taro lo‘i?
I lament the wounded
skies, unnourished
desolate, fallen drunk
over the iron sea
who chants
the hollow ipu
into the night?
I lament the black
and naked past, a million ghosts
laid out across the ocean floor
who journeys from
the rising to the setting
of the sun?
I lament the flowers
‘a‘ole pua, without
issue on the stained
and dying earth
who parts the trembling
legs, enters where
the god enters, not
as a man but as a god?
long, furious lamentation
flung down
into the bitter stomachs
into the blood-filled streams
into the far
and scattered graves
who tells of those
disinterred, their
ground-up bones, their
poisoned eyes?
for Mililani
doves in the rain
mornings above
Kāne‘ohe Bay blue
sheen stillness
across long waters gliding
to Coconut Island
channels of sound
color rhythmic
currents shell
picking jellyfish
hunting squeals
of mischief oblivious
in the calm
rain pours
steady clouding
the light dark
mornings darker
evenings silted
in the night smell of dead
limu dead
reef
eight million
for Coconut Island
five hundred thousand
for townhouses
on the hill traffic
and greedy foreigners
by the mile
destruction as a way
of life clever
haole culture
killing as it goes
‘no stone
left unturned’
no people
left untouched
in every native
place a pair
of sisters
driven by the sound
of doves
the color of
morning
defending life
with the spear
of memory
Our own people
say, ‘Hawaiian
at heart.’ Makes
me sick to hear
how easily
genealogy flows
away. Two thousand
years of wise
creation bestowed
for a smile
on resident non
natives.
‘Form of survival,’
this thoughtless inclusion.
Taking in
foreigners and friends.
Dismissing history
with a servant’s
grin.
Hawaiian at heart:
nothing said
about loss
violence, death
by hundreds of thousands.
Hawaiian at heart:
a whole people
accustomed
to prostitution
selling identity
and dimes
in the whorehouses
of tourism.
Hawaiian at heart:
why no ‘Japanese
at heart?’
How about
‘haole at heart?’
Ruling classes
living off
natives
first
land
then
women
now
hearts
cut out
by our own
familiar hand.