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Eia ka pua o ka ʻōlelo,
Ka pua o ka manaʻo,
Ka pua o ka naʻau,
Ka pua o ka aloha.

He kanaka o ka hau,
He kanaka o ka manua,
He kanaka o ka mālamalama,
He kanaka o ka hoʻomanaʻo.

He wahine o ka wela,
He wahine o ka mālie,
He wahine o ka nani,
He wahine o ka aloha.

Ua hui ʻia lākou,
Ma ke alo o ka ʻāina,
Ma ke alo o ka moana,
Ma ke alo o ka lewa.

Ua ʻike lākou i ke aloha,
Ua ʻike lākou i ka mahalo,
Ua ʻike lākou i ka manaʻo maikaʻi,
Ua ʻike lākou i ka hoʻomanaʻo.
I used to live in Hawai'i, many moons ago.
And I tried this, but never felt I got it right.
Maybe another poet who writes in Hawai'ian can help critique or fix this.

Translation
Here is the flower of speech,
The flower of thought,
The flower of the heart,
The flower of love.

He is a man of snow,
He is a man of the cold,
He is a man of light,
He is a man of memory.

She is a woman of warmth,
She is a woman of peace,
She is a woman of beauty,
She is a woman of love.

They were united,
In the presence of the land,
In the presence of the sea,
In the presence of the sky.

They found love,
They found gratitude,
They found kindness,
They found memory.
Tom McCubbin Apr 2015
I have not been anywhere,
done anything, thought anything,
and feel nothing.

At least,
that’s what my blank, plain-clothed
T-shirt would indicate to other people.
A man walking the earth with
no visible identity.

When I put on my Hawaiian shirt, however,
they believe my mind to be full of
pineapples, hula girls swinging softly in the
ukulele moonlight, palm fronds swaying
in the dacron, or is it rayon, ripples
of my baggy upper man.

Let others think what they might
of my images, or the lack of words
and logos.
My inner tag says that
I’m size “L” and that I’m made on
factory looms in China, that my buttons
are constructed to look like the
real thing–a round slice of bone or
perhaps ivory.

I am not so much anywhere on the
outside, even though there are places
I would like to go fling my few dollars.
Inside, however, I am lost,
pleasantly lost and hiding, within the
convenience of my unprinted shirt.
Lunar Apr 2015
is the love that would bloom to its fullest
when nobody gets left behind
in Hawaiian, it means 'family'
in Japanese, it means 'the beginning of a flower'
I have found an inner peace
free from the toils that never cease

far away the pains have past
free for once to everlast

listen to the wind blow free
I listen with my heart you see

I could no longer bear
the shedding of my soul to tear

the ceaseless pulmelling
the overbearance I could not fling

but now my returns are due
through a dark valley I made it through

for on the other side there resides
a lasting peace by the riverside

cross over the waters of life
come with me , put down your strife

let the river sweep away our past
let this river crossing be our last

— The End —