from Sourcing Siapo
grandmother names her Delores after Our Lady of Sorrows
her needs weaken our wings
because she is our mother we want to give her ours
we are the ten children of heaven
weeping for cool mornings to comfort her
for her future men to recognize beauty
mother baby bees
river face kingfisher
turtle island tree
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we want to restore her wholly
may she be a little girl again
may her darkblue bruises heal
and the famine finally end.
we count her tears lift her
into our wings whispering
into her seashell ears
we will protect you mother
will we remember our vows?
father catches her first
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Before the divorce November learns music by ear
bought his first guitar at eleven years old
harmonized O Holy Night with the starry sky
pealed the pathway for the three kings
to find Bethlehem, but January
wanted him to follow his own star
to stop drinking and drugging, to abandon
the quest of finding his real father
Brother someday – You’ll be greater than the greatest
Starring on the Merv Griffin Show
Brother remember the review in the Davis Enterprise
the photo of your head tilted way back your song
opening your chest opening the colors of a blue vest
they way you held the microphone like a professional
and the headline reading in big bold font:
Taesali’s Gethsemane Brings the House to its Feet
your performance covered the entire front page
1967 St. Pius X Seminary Galt, California. November is the soprano in the all-male choir–scrapes fame in 9th grade prized his performances include: In Concert with Duke Ellington, Stockton, CA, Westminster Presbyterian Church, St. Peter’s Cathedral, San Francisco, CA (for the first time the choir was given permission from the Archbishop to bring drums into the Cathedral); Recording the LP “The Marvels of God” (only 200 copies produced at St. Pius X Seminary
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Sing beat pound ink dye my siapo with all that is written here in these letters poems and songs bury me in my bark cloak cover my body with these restricted nouns absent fathers mothers sisters brothers crawling standing walking into these arms hands fingers legs feet heart sweat out wear out the forced alphabet
I’ll proudly walk inside this stiff strange resiliency of siapo and before I go—I’ll kiss my brother March goodbye walk far from town until I stumble upon a hole in the Earth and descend into the underground I’ll leave behind the childrearing that failed that was too large
Father mother listen the cool darkness has befriended me my body
is curling into breadfruit root I’ll sleep here a year or longer
let the o’a (browns) and lama (blacks) seep into my muscles organs bones my bark cloak decomposing
the sorrowful vowels the broken periods
So that I may rise into that enormous cosmology leaving nothing behind for the gossips letting their
hurtling slurs rock me into the underworld where the third-eye council of women is bright
the table long and there are plenty of windows for the sun
I am sitting with Grandmother Suliana outside of the fale on the beach near Utulei grandmother points to
the window in the sky
Fa’afetai tele lava daughter for your siapo story we see octopus applauding with all six hands he is my Tamā
I follow the footprints of fa'a gogo (sandpiper) my fetu (star) the fa’a masina (moon)
Sina (Fire Goddess)
Granddaughter you now carry the water for our ava garden
(c) 2016, University of Hawai'i, Ala Press