Donovan Kūhiō Colleps

It’s not so easy to smash the compass. To rely on the winds     the golden hum of Herb Kane clouds navigating the tips of these mountains. It’s not so easy to modify the compass. To apologize when your brothers are spreading the sashimi and churning the shoyu mustard. It’s not so easy to ignore the compass because it seems to have always been here in all its sextant glory     pointing distracting you from Wākea’s blue teeth nibbling Papa’s chest. It’s not so easy     but it’s possible to say “aloha, for now” to family and friends pouring bags of ice into clean coolers before the big show. To walk past uncle’s squid lū‘au bubbling green, to get in that car and drive, with nothing but a fistful of quarters for the library Xerox machine. It’s possible     because when those books slide across the counter and you walk to an empty table     the compass begins to shake and the needle is never the same    again. With every turn of a Pacific page you realize      pukas are being filled or new ones      uncovered. And the art of listening brings with it memories, of the physics of his hips and hands     when you first saw him cast that net     slicing the horizon. The needle doesn’t like it when you flatten the cube to discover your kūpuna were always just around the corner    from where you sit      now. And the halftime show hasn’t even started, yet. The time it takes to get from the third million-dollar commercial to the fifth     is equal to the time it takes to find the Kānaka Maoli name of the land that raised you     buried under the pavements     under the brand new      two-lane     fast food      drive-thru. But what the compass really hates      what it’s really afraid of is when you see the lo‘i in the same way that you see that empty Sunday afternoon library     when you finally see the moana in your kūpuna’s eye. So now      when you return home and the cooler is empty and the sashimi spiral is nearly gone   unfurl those Xerox copies across the dining table     consoling the cousins who lost money on the spread. And as the compass repairs itself    as it always does it will feel the sting when it finds you       tomorrow with your back being warmed by the morning sun.

For my grandmother I am water, only because you are the ocean. We are here, only because old leaves have been falling. A mulching of memories folding into buried hands. The cliffs we learn to edge. The tree trunk hollowed, humming. I am a tongue, only because you are the body planting stories with thumb. Soil crumbs cling to your knees. Small stacks of empty clay pots dreaming. I am an air plant suspended, only because you are the trunk I cling to. I am the milky fish eye, only because it’s your favorite. Even the sound you make when your lips kiss the opelu socket is a mo‘olelo. A slipper is lost in the yard. A haku lei is chilling in the icebox. I am a cup for feathers, only because you want to fill the hours. I am a turning wrist, only because you left the hose on. Heliconias are singing underwater. Beetles are floating across the yard.