In that vein, I would like to share--
I usually start a reading by sharing some other poet's work
that I admire.
And tonight, I want to share some words with you
from poet No'u Revilla.
She is a Kanaka Oiwi poet.
And right now, as we speak, she is holding poetry classes
at Pu'u Huluhulu at the site of Mauna
Kea at their newly installed university,
happening right now.
And from No'u, from Mauna Kea, she says,
"We are the model, not the shame.
We can feed ourselves.
We can organize ourselves.
We can protect ourselves.
We can educate ourselves all in kapu aloha."
So I'd like to read a poem of No'u's called "Rope Tongue."
"Grandma was a lizard at our age.
She walked first, the story goes, and learned
to climb up the stiff, metal pole, up and over the hanging
head, up until she was up and it was down.
The lamp post, I thought, was a cervix to the sky,
but, no, not female.
It belonged to the pier and, thus, us.
We pissed everywhere-- on the bridge, on the concrete floor,
on the steps running down to the tires in the ocean where we
waited for others to jump--
young, territorial, everywhere pissing.
There was rope that hung from one end of the pier
to the other, rope that hung like a tongue,
the kind of tongue we wished to have in our little girl
mouths--
sick, twisted, tasting salt in broad daylight-- big girl
tongue.
In the water, we mounted it, squeezed it between our legs,
like she said, slyly reproductive.
Grandma jumped into the ocean with her legs spread, landed,
and the water turned to foam.
The rope was dry for 13 days, one for every child that
swam out of her.
We dreamed of sex in tents, on cliffs,
in the morning, out of wedlock, of making eyes, biting lips,
saying, I want, I will, I do, and meaning the fuck out of it.
The fuck of it formed like vowels between our legs,
not like the other girls and their ABCs.
We knew rope like A-E-I-O-U. One child from her forehead,
one from her tongue.
Another rolled out from her sweet jump spot.
After another, after another, after another
from her mo'o toes.
They climbed like her.
Grandma.
Lizard.
At our age."
No'u Revilla.
[APPLAUSE]