By Donovan Kūhiō Colleps
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.
Poet Bio
More Poems about Living
Meanwhile
From the Sky
When I die,
bury me in the sky—
no one is fighting over it.
Children are playing soccer
with empty bomb shells
(from the sky I can see them).
A grandmother is baking
her Eid makroota and mamoul
(from the sky I can taste them).
Teens are writing love...
More Poems about Nature
Listening in Deep Space
We've always been out looking for answers,
telling stories about ourselves,
searching for connection, choosing
to send out Stravinsky and whale song,
which, in translation, might very well be
our undoing instead of a welcome.
We launch satellites, probes, telescopes
unfolding like origami, navigating
geomagnetic storms, major disruptions.
Rovers...
At the Equinox
The tide ebbs and reveals orange and purple sea stars.
I have no theory of radiance,
but after rain evaporates
off pine needles, the needles glisten.
In the courtyard, we spot the rising shell of a moon,
and,...
More Poems about Relationships
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Water of the womb
It is winter in Anchorage, and I am only as tall as the shoveled snowbanks in the parking lot of the pink apartments. I am old enough to have chores but young enough not to fully understand frostbite. It is...