Chant Of Lamentation - Haunani-Kay Trask

[Larry Robinson]

Chant Of Lamentation

I lament the abandoned
terraces, their shattered
waters, silent ears
of stone and light

who comes trailing
winds through
taro lo‘i?

I lament the wounded
skies, unnourished
desolate, fallen drunk
over the iron sea

who chants
the hollow ipu
into the night?

I lament the black
and naked past, a million ghosts
laid out across the ocean floor

who journeys from
the rising to the setting
of the sun?

I lament the flowers
a‘ole pua, without
issue on the stained
and dying earth

who parts the trembling
legs enters where
the god enters, not
as a man but as a god?

I lament my own
long, furious lamentation
flung down
into the bitter stomachs

into the blood-filled streams
into the far
and scattered graves

who tells of those
disinterred, their
ground-up bones, their
poisoned eyes?

	- Haunani-Kay Trask
	(Oct. 3, 1949 - July 3. 2021)
	https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/us/haunani-kay-trask-dead.html

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