bad news, tore like
Pi' in a 'au streams,
through lava rocks
at Ko' olau Gap
tore anything in its way up
I was a hau petal
wind blown
dashed against blackstone
the rest of spring,
sheer drop off,
rock cliffs it was
easy to slip on.
My sister planted lilac that May
I knew my mother would never see
blossom. Her favorite flower.
A scent she often wore to remember
the man who filled her New York
apartment with: lavender,
plum and orchids, colors
she often wore, the scrawny sticks
like her arms were.
I thought of the brothers in old Maui
on their way to the sea
who planted two coconut trees in the
bluff, told their parents,
if they did not return, the palms,
upright and full of sweet fruit,
will stand for what
they could have been