HAWAI`I PONO`_
 
On Friday, August 7, 1987 
Forty-three kanakas from Wai`anae, 
In a deluxe, super-duper, air-conditioned, tinted-glass 
	tourist-kind bus, 
Headed to Honolulu on an excursion to the Palace, 
	`Iolani Palace. 
 
Racing through Wai`anae, Ma`ili, N_n_kuli-- 
Past Kahe Point, past the `Ewa Plain-- 
In the back of the bus, the teenagers - 35 of them 
Rappin`, and snappin`, and shouting to friends and strangers 
	alike:  Eh, howzit, check it out, goin` to town . . . 
 
(Along the way, people stop and stare, wondering, 
	What are those blahs and titas doing in that bus?) 
 
Cousin Bozo, our driver, (yes, that`s his real name) 
Spins the steering wheel, turning the hulk-of-a-bus, 
Squeezing and angling it through the gates made just 
Wide enough for horses and carriages and buggies. 
 
Docent Doris greets us: 
"Aloha mai.  Aloha mai.  Aloha mai. 
"Only twenty per group, please. 
"Young people, please, deposit your gum and candy in the  
trash. 
"No radios.  No cameras. 
"Quiet. Please." 
 
"Now, will you all follow me up these steps. 
"Hele mai `oukou, e `_ww." 
 
Like a pile of fish, we rushed after her. 
 
At the top of the steps, 
We put on soft, mauve colored cloth coverings over our 
	shoes and slippers, 
	to protect the precious hard wood floors 
	from the imprint of our modern step. 
 
Through the polished koa wood doors, with elegantly etched  
	glass windows, 
Docent Doris ushers us into another Time. 
Over the carefully polished floors we glide, through the  
	darkened hallways: spinning, sniffing, turning,  
	fingers reaching to touch something sacred, something 
	forbidden - quickly. 


Then into the formal dining room, silent now. 
Table set: the finest French crystal gleaming; spoons,  
	knives, forks, laid with precision next to gold-rimmed 
	plates with the emblem of the King. 
Silent now. 
 
La`amea `_. 
 
Portraits of friends of Hawai`i line the dining room walls: 
	a Napolean, a British Admiral . . . But no portrait of 
	any American President.  (Did you know that?) 
 
Then, into the ballroom, 
Where the King, Kal_kaua, and his Queen, Kapi`olani, and their 
	guests 
	waltzed, sang and laughed and yawned into the dawn. 
	(No one daring to leave before His Majesty) 
The Royal Hawaiian Band plays 
	the Hawaiian National Anthem and all chattering 
	and negotiating stops.  As the King and his shy Queen 
	descend the center stairway. 
 
And up that same stairway, we ascend -the twenty of us. 
Encouraged, at last, to touch . . . 
	Running our hands over the koa railing, 
	. . . we embrace our history. 
 
To the right is the Queen`s sunny room . . . a faint 
	rustle of petticoats. 
 
To the left, we enter the King`s study: 
 
	Books everywhere.  Photographs everywhere. 
	The smell of leather, and tobacco, ink and parchment - 
	The smell of a man at work. 
 
	Electric light bulbs (in the Palace of a savage, 
	can you imagine?) 
	Docent Doris tells us to be proud, that electricity lit 
	the Palace before the White House. 
	There, a telephone on the wall. 
 
	Iwalani longs to open those books on his desk, 
	Tony tries to read and translate the documents, 
		written in Hawaiian, just lying on his desk. 
 
La`amea `_. 

Slowly, we leave the King. 
And walk into the final room to be viewed on the  
	second floor. 
The room is almost empty; the room is almost dark. 
It is a small room.  It is a confining room. 
		It is the prison room of Queen Lili`uokalani. 
 
Docent Doris tells us: 
 
"This is the room Queen Lili`uokalani was imprisoned in 
for nine months, after she was convicted of treason.  
She had only one haole lady-in-waiting. 
She was not allowed to leave this room during that  
time; 
She was not allowed to have any visitors or 
communications with anyone else; 
She was not allowed to have any knowledge of what was 
happening to her Hawai`i or to her people." 
 
Lili`uokalani.  `_. 
 
I move away from the group. 
First, I walk to one dark corner, then another, 
	then another.  Pacing.  Pacing, Searching. 
	Trying to find a point of reference, an anchor, 
	a hole, a door, a hand, a window, my breath . . . 
I was in that room.  Her room.  In which she lived and 
	died and composed songs for her people.  It was 
	the room in which she composed prayers to a  
	deaf people: 
 
	"Oh honest Americans, hear me for my downtrodden  
	people . . ." 
 
She stood with me at her window; 
Looking out on the world, that she would never rule again; 
Looking out on the world that she would only remember 
	in the scent of flowers; 
Looking out on a world that once despised her, 
 
And in my left ear, she whispered: 
E, Pua.  Remember: 
 
This is not America. 
And we are not Americans. 
 
Hawai`i Pono‘. 
 
Amene. 
 
                                            by Puanani Burgess
 


	APPENDIX F
	


	APPENDIX F