WEBVTT

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I can't.

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There's too much of that long--

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I mean, they're telling
stories all the way up,

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and there's too much to read to
you in the time that we have.

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But I want to do a little
bit about her going down

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into the valley, and then
her coming to the grave

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and realizing that he had--
that it's been untouched.

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And it sort of picks up
the whole of the earlier

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story at that point.

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"And Kaleimanu went to
him and embraced him,

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laying his head
against cool stomach.

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And then asked him if this was
the stream where it happened.

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'Where what happened?'
Kua asked him.

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'Where they met the
soldiers,' Kaleimanu said.

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This is the stream, Kua told
him, but this is not the place.

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Kaleimanu said, 'Will you
tell me the story once more,

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right here?'

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And they stood in
a ring in the wind,

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listening to Kua tell of
Lahi, the boy who ate birds,

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and his uncle,
Kanealohi, Slow Man.

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And he tells him that story.

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And after the story, it was
then that Kua had led Kaleimanu

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to the edge of the cliff where
the light rose from the valley,

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and it showed him those two
rocks that were the children

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of Naiwi and said to him, 'that
is where the right trail goes

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down.'

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And he pointed to a
thread like a goat track

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following the knife edge of one
of the fins out in the clouds.

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'That is the one that goes
all the way,' he said.

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'The others end in nothing.'

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And he hugged the
child and told him,

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'but it is not
good to look back.'

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Then he went to help
them load themselves

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with the few things they would
be carrying, Pi'ilani stood

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looking down at the clear
water gliding in front of her

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toward the fall, its surface
not appearing to move.

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She knelt in the wet moss to
put her mouth to the cold pane

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and drink from it, with
her eyes open at first.

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And then she closed them and
plunged her head and hands

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into the unseen current
for a long breath,

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overhearing the voices
in the water talking.

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And then she sat up and
ate a few pieces of taro

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and drank again,
and lifted her head

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to stare at the face
below her in the stream

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with the sky under
it and the eyes

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burning from their dark places.

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She looked at it, feeling that
she know nothing about it.

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And then she stood up
in the day and walked

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to where the right trail
disappeared over the edge

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into Kalalau.

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And as she comes down--

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she finally comes down, this
terrifying trip down the cliffs,

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she remembers, of course, his
dying before she buries him.

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" And it was in the
night that he had died,

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just as the I'a, the Fish,
the Milky Way was turning,

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and Pi'ilani, after
his breath had stopped,

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when his pulse was
no longer there,

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had put her head down on his
chest with her hair across his

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body and had listened to
the darkness below her

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and the darkness above her while
the last embers of the small

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fire among the rocks
at their feet went out.

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And the cold of
his hands deepened,

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and her tears kept turning cold
when they ran down onto him.

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She heard the darkness of the
mountain under her all the way

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to the underside of the
streef-- of the sea floor.

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And through her hair, she
heard the night winds,

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high in the valley,
rising and leaving.

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And she heard 'uwa'u 'uwa'u,
the cry of the petrels echoing

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in the cliffs, the stream
whispering over the rocks,

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and the faint sounds
some said were crickets,

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and others said were
land snails singing.

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And they were spirits.

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And when the wind was quiet,
she could hear the sea

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far below her, where
all the waves ended.

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She sat up in the dark and
saw where the stars had come.

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She picked up a shell
and started to pat it,

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rocking slowly forward and
back, chanting under her breath.

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First she chatted
to him by name,

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by the name that she had
called him all her life.

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And already, she could
hear the difference.

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Ko'olau, Ko'olau, you are going.

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You are going now.

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You are still here.

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You are going.

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You are not sick anymore.

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You are not dying now.

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But if you want to come
back, Ko'olau, come back.

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Come back.

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Then it had been dark, and once
more she had chanted to him,

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Ko'olau, now it is night for
me and it is night for you.

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Now we are in the
night, Ko'olau.

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There is only
night where we are.

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When the chant had ebbed in her
breath, she had got to her feet

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and gone down to the stream,
again stepping like a stranger

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as though she were feeling her
route through a rolling cloud.

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She had come to the water
running cold from the cliff.

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She had heard it come up to her,
talking to itself, not to her.

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Not to her, even then.

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Not to her, yet.

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She had stepped down into it
and knelt among the big stones,

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slipping between them.

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She had lain down among
them, letting the breathless

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touch glide over her until
she could feel it no longer.

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While the colorless syllables
still hurried past her,

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she had got to her feet
and followed the stream

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through the dark, knowing
her way down the valley.

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It had been years since she had
spoken to anyone except him,

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and in an earlier
time, Kaleimanu.

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But some who had lived in
the valley had come back.

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People they had known
once had come back,

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a few of them at a time.

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She had seen one or two of them
approaching the floors of ashes

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that had been their houses,
had seen new grass roofs later,

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and backs in the taro ponds.

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She had heard the voices
and slipped close to listen.

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And that night, she could
see small fires down

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in the valley near
the east headland.

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And she had wanted
to be with people,

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but she had gone past the fires
to where the current rattled

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across the shingle.

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She had felt the
canoes drawn up there.

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She had walked slowly along
the rocks to the white stream

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were unfurling on the
tops of the low breakers,

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and she had sunk down
into the night surf

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to be washed clean
in the darkness.

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She moved cautiously to the
grave, breaking nothing,

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making scarcely
a sound until she

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could kneel beside the flat
stone in the shadow of ferns

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and touch the green
moss just above ground.

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There she waited.

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Birds were speaking in
branches close to her--

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'elepaios curious, not singing--

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and she waited.

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And then she lay down,
breaking nothing,

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and put her ear to the
ground and listened

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as she did each time she came.

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And in one ear she heard
the leaves, and the birds,

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and the branches.

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And in the other ear, the one
note of the mountain of Kane,

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the silence under
the forty forms,

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the darkness under the day.

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It had not changed,
and she closed her eyes

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and was filled with it.

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And at last, she
stood up slowly.

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And with the same
care, went along

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to the cleft in the
rock wall and the bushes

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of 'ulei that had grown over
the mouth of the low cave

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at the foot of the cliff where
they had buried Kaleimanu.

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The small green leaves
were shining like eyes,

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and the white flowers
were hiding among them,

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and slender branches were
swaying slowly out over them

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into empty air.

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And she put her ear to the warm
stone and stood listening there,

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then sat against the rock
wall beside the 'ulei

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and saw the shadow
rising on the cliff,

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and heard the
birds that were not

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the ones Kaleimanu had
listened to telling

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their day and its passing.

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And when she felt
the shadow, she

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unwrapped the last of
the cold taro and ate.

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And then she lay down and heard
the sleep of the mountain."

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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