The Only Thing Certain Is The One Song Of My Heart

[Congratulations to Steve Backinoff for his runner-up entry in our 2012 Creative Competition. Check back daily as we post other recognized entries.]


    E Ala E, E Ala E!   May my eyes see only beauty today. May my heart know peace today.

We rolled around again. Rolled the blazing fire out of the sea into the swiftly running puff balls of shifting shapes until this new day shot me firmly in the eye.   A gaggle of nene pass and call. Groups of boobies cruise toward the east side. Solo mature albatross out to collect for their funny fluffy mohawk chicks sitting on open plateau.  Straining to perhaps see kohala breach.

Breathing in this newness, and fighting to dis- remember yesterdays bad dream.  I was blessed to be selected as one of the riders and witnesses on the garbage tour of our garden island. We were shown the gem piles of broken bottles, bundled newspapers, aluminum cans once briefly filled with soft drinks and beers, and miracle of miracles, numba one and two plastics, pressed and wrapped for shipment to China delivered by barges burning oil to factories burning more oil for the smelting and pulping to break down these materials brought into big box stores by other

container barges burning more ancient fossils and eventually sold back to us to make more unneeded packagings for non- nutritious and chemical products. They say it takes a village. I wonder if any one in the village ever stops and listens to the village idiot who sees that the king is naked.

E Ala E, E Ala E,   Wake up again.    Remember the beauty and the peace.

I also went off the road to see how they had blocked off the path to Kipu Falls. Thought maybe just signs.  Saw prison fences , high with barbed wire and viscious rolls of spiked wire , ripping skin wire, right to edge of bridge , to edge of ravine.  You could definitely get hurt bad trying to go to enjoy a swim like we used to. They protect us from ourselves.

May my eyes see only beauty ! May my heart know peace.

We went from the " RECYCLING" center out to the " LAND FILL".   Instructed in the high tech construction with layer after layer of containment for the breakdown of our daily tons of un-recyclable stuff. And standing on the mountain of waste, in the delicious aroma of rot, we could gaze directly down the runway for some sort of jet related to our ability to detect early a missle fired by the North Koreans ( or maybe the Chinese sending just a small bit of our garbage back) and we can then launch our missle to intercept. " Keeping us Safe?"  ( making us a target).

The other views included GMO test crops and the shrimp farm. The foreground.  I look further to the plain of Mana and feel the spirits that have flown off from Polihale grimacing and sickly laughing in disbelief of what we have done.

I begin my awkward wobbling run toward the cliff. I'm alive. I have not been eaten by stray dogs. I have the prayer of flight.  I feel the lift of a stiff ocean breeze just in time.    I am airborne.

I have been here before , many times. I have seen the earth mother take the sky father into her arms. I have seen the embracing of night and day. I have seen the stars exploding in the belly of her and flowing out into the cooling sea hissing with birth, showering sharp flakes of birth.

I have seen the ohia seeds scattered.   Kamakani singing in the lihilihi. A seedling sprout and shout red new life , Lehua. The birds spreading their digestion.   And building , building , building these mountains in the sea.

And we came from the Pleiades.  Us human beings .   Blessed to live in bounty. And be born again from the Kalo tuber.    Cook me in the fire brought to Maui and  his brothers by the secret code of the red combed duck. The secret of wooden sticks spun to spark. Cook me and pound me.   I will give sustainance.   All you need.  From the water of the rains , falling from rocks and the sun that lives in my eyes and belly.   The soil of shell and ash, and bone and bird digestion.

I am home to seed and greenness sprouts from me forever more giving the air for your song.

I run hard up the muddy trail, through the thin veil of bamboo. One portal. Another dimension.

Past the heads of pohaku. I stop to kiss my papa's forehead.  I give thanks for his vision  and solidness. I stop to bathe. For purification. And enter the next portal. This one is thick with shadows. The pain we are given with birth and the pains we acquire from the unpurified pains and fears of our ancestors. I crawl and climb. push and pull. I am torn and worn. I am lost and then found and lost again.   I am driven to find the bones.  If I can get through the last portal and

reclaim the bones.   The dream of the one song of my heart will echo and reverberate singing

fruit and sweetness on all the tongues of all the beings. The song of the whale, the playful soundings of naia. The flitting and whistle of the honey creepers. The joyful family at the hukilau. Full moon glimmering on the waves of the east.

The smiling of the spirits of Aloha. We breath together once more on the trail to forgiveness, bathed in morning dew. We breath together and awake to the dawn , in love, always in love.