I have another poem full of Hawaiian words,
and I'm getting quite nervous myself
at the thought of reading these words.
And I want to explain what they are, because they're
all either animals or birds or vegetables or trees that
are becoming extinct.
And there's one little problem with this poem, which you'll
see, but I won't say anything about it
till I've finished reading the poem.
Well, at least one little problem.
Tonight the oohaoo, dark-rumped, cries like a dog at the cliff.
After her day out at sea, she comes home,
and with cries like a bark, seeks her burrows in the cliff.
Goodbye, oohaoo.
And full grown olapa tree, one sees you old.
One sees no little trees.
Goodbye, olapa tree.
God be w'ye, [HAWAIIN LANGUAGE].
God be with you, [HAWAIIN LANGUAGE]..
God be also with you, manoa, last ones of your kind.
In you all, God goodbyes itself little by little.
One by one, God gathers up its best companions,
and at a certain time, goes away with you.
The problem, the one I had in mind,
was the use of the possessive its with reference to God.
I don't believe in God the Father, nor did her seem right.
So I put in its, and yet something's wrong there too.
Is it possible that the word it can be restored to sacredness?
[LAUGHTER]
Rather than by applying it to God, God reduced to thingness.
The romance languages, of course,
don't have to even consider that,
since the possessive has to agree with the thing possessed.
But so English presents this to me interesting question.