16. 

E ku‘u mau ‘ōmaka i ke kīhāpai:
may you always know these islands,
like you, Daughters, are more
than enough, know that like you,
they are everything beautiful,
everything buoyant. Their winds
and rains and mountains, ravines
and valleys love without question.
Like our islands, may you give birth
first to yourselves, then love always
with green tenderness, thrusting
your hands into mud, opening
your body into ocean, knowing
these islands are here for you,
for your children and their children,
knowing we are these islands.

For you, may there always be refuge,
safety within the walls you reach,
behind borders, under flags, and in
your own bodies. May you always
be grateful for peace, for open harbors
not freely entered, for treaties honored,
for nothing taken that was not first
given, for iwi still earthed, for new
coral growth unbleached, for black
cloud cover and trees, breathable air,
a beach, stream, or ocean without
plastic tangle or sewage or toxic seep.

I wish you words and medicines
that lift and heal, vegetables and fruit
from organic earth, free-flowing waters
from mountain to ocean, Daughters, cool
and clean, unowned, shared. I wish you
ocean-salted rocks and shells you can taste
and hold in your mouth, blades of grass
and ridged bark—all coolness and warmth
to press to your cheek, to your lips. May you
know love in every form, but always
in the food you eat, that you love the crust
dried poi makes on the skin around your lips,
the dark green of lū‘au, soft steam of ‘ulu,
of ‘uala, the way you must slurp the red wild
of ‘ōhi‘a ‘ai—all from ‘āina you’ve curled
your toes into—may you always be full.

May there be hiding places to keep you
as hidden as you want, climbing places
to keep you above, flying places, resting
places, low-lying and high-cliff caves,
more places carved by winds and rains,
salt and waves, fragrant jungles, terraced
gardens, islands old and still being born,
places where you wait for welcome,
places that you know are not for you
or anyone to enter—may you protect all
of those places and may they protect you.

May the wind and waves lift you up
and may you let yourself fly, wonder,
from a pali overlook as ‘iwa or pueo
circle above, or as koholā or nai‘a
breach through ocean in the distance,
about lightness and sky—that you
remember you can rise high above
whatever may hold you down.

May you hear these islands breathe
with you, let them be big enough
to carry you, small enough to carry
with you. May you know these islands
depend on your breath, that the ocean,
rains, and winds need your voice.
That every green growing thing lives
and births more green growing.
That there is safety and warmth
enough, shade enough when you
need it—water, food, shelter, love.
That you sleep deeply and
let yourself hear our kūpuna.

May you know smallness—know
to be careful and think of unseen
workings, to remember the smallest
can be the strongest, to feel you are
islands like ours, not separated
by ocean—but threaded—your roots
woven and fed by the same fire
and water and salt and darkness.

May you know immensity too—
that even when you think you are
alone, that you feel the ocean
in your sweat and tears, that you
watch rain wash the hillsides
into a dark stream and see your skin,
that the sun, moon, and stars, dark
underwater caverns, underground rivers,
all you see and don’t see of ‘āina,
are your kūpuna, your ‘ohana in
your every breath, that something
of you, something of all of us before,
and something of all of us to come
are these islands. May this always
be with you: e ola mau, e ola nō.