Kaua
By
Nicholas Becher
_____________________
In
Hawaii
Even
the trees are at war
The
wilted leaves of indigenous plants
Collect
on the earth
While
the western flowers bloom and flourish
They
say I'm like a ghost
When
I breathe,
And
the way my skin
Is
always the same shade of white
So
I've been reading,
Studying
the Polynesians
Samoans
Tourists
Micronesians
Pidgins
Trying
to decipher
Where
I fit.
As I
walk through a cemetery
In
Kaneohe,
A
hundred living corpses crawl out of their graves.
They
come at me
With
haunting ferocity;
Yet I
stand my ground.
One
in particular,
With
sunken eyes
Missing
bones
Dripping
lips
And
brown skin,
Asks
if I am of native blood.
I
tell him to see for himself
Take
a bite
Swallow
me whole.
But
he says it is futile
And
that nowadays,
All
blood tastes the same.
In
Hawaii
Even
the children are at war
Instead
of reading and multiplying
Their
time is spent deciding
What
language to read
And
what numbers to multiply.
In
the graveyard I am resilient
Treading
further into the abyss
As
the light from the mountains fades
A
glooming fog takes its place
As
the ghosts gather in circles
Speaking
a distant language.
I
reach in my backpack
Pull
out my notes
Sit
down on a gravestone
Amidst
the ghouls
And
start to explain myself,
"I've
been trying for five years
To
learn about the soil
Deep
under my feet;
The
time and tide of every beach;
The
path between islands;
Way
finding; Eddie; Kauna;
Relentless
hours of studying
And
dissecting your heritage.
But
no matter how much I read
How
much I breathe the island air
Lay
on the northern shore
Or
gaze into Oahu's
Jaded
blue eyes,
I
will always be
An
imposter.
A
fake.
A
tourist.
A
haole."
In
Hawaii
Even
the birds are at war
They
clip each other’s wings
Forget
how to fly
In a
last ditch effort
To
salvage the scraps on the ground
I am
interrupted by a glowing woman
Beautiful
in her translucence
But
reeking of Sulphur and Ammonia.
She
tells me, "It isn't meaningless.
Look
at the clouds,
They
are white and brilliant
Even
in the moonlight;
they
are images of our land
Reflected
in the sky.
Since
you are here,
You
are there
With
the rest of us."
Then
I pictured the clouds
Grey
sometimes
Or
black
Or
pink
Or
green
Or
blue
Or
white
And I
shrugged
Because
I wasn't convinced.
In
Hawaii
Even
the streets are at war
Cars
sit for hours on loaded freeways
Idling
carbon fuels into the atmosphere
While
thousands of people scream at themselves
For
creating such a giant mess.
"Don't
you see?
She
asks me to swim with her,
Walk
with her
Stare
up at the stars with her
Learn
all there is to know from her
Fall
in love with her.
But
she denies me still
I am
left broken
Abandoned
Striving
to be loved in return.
Because
I was not born
In
the middle of the sea,
My
burning heart
Will
never be..."
In
the midst of my poem
I see
the ghosts disappear
And I
realize the real dilemma:
The
people here
Think
the problem is here
And
the people there
Think
the problem is there
But
not until we realize
That
the problem is everywhere
Will
we realize what the real problem is
And
that it can't be solved at all.
In
Hawaii
Everything
is at war
Just
like the rest of the world
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