by Bailey Baybayan
No Ka Malu ʻUlu o Lele
For the lush green lands that flow from Mauka to Makai
Fish ponds that house the sustenance of our people
Winds that carry the sweet fragrance of aloha
Our land is the most beautiful in the world …
… Is what I would say if sleek white hotels didnʻt block the sun
If the terf of Kaʻanapali Golf Course wasnʻt laid over the iwi of our kupuna
If trash didnʻt litter our once thriving beaches,
Killing native plants and animals.
Is this still the land of Ka Malu ʻUlu o Lele?
In ka wā kahiko, ʻiliahi flowered Lahaina’s lavish lands
Until Kamehameha lost the right of Hawaiʻiʻs own plant to the greedy hands of capitalism;
The lands we protected now perfectly fit for foreign farms.
Lahaina was once the royal capital of aloha,
Only for it to become lost to the ignorance of the values we set.
The tourists who visit for the spirit of aloha donʻt realize that the hotels they stay in perpetuate cultural loss
They say they visit for the beauty of our culture and land
Yet they wander the modern streets blighted by rows of hotels and ignore the history the country so blatantly hides
The bones of our kupuna; the bones of our blood; the bones that are filled with the aloha tourists wish they could experience-
Is buried beneath their feet.
So when flames rip through the land, coloring the sky orange and gray, our blood is not the one considered.
The soul of a once historical site was consumed by the blaze, only to be replaced with modern property catering to tourists
Is our suffering no more than an inconvenience to the CEOs of America; our concerns crushed like insects in the name of another boardwalk?
Another Wailea, another Waikīkī, another Kīhei, Honolulu, Kaʻanapali …
Will Lahaina no longer belong to Hawaiian hands, but the foreign?
“Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono”, The life of the land is preserved in righteousness.
But where has that righteousness gone?
The ʻāina we used to call ʻohana we allow to be forsaken by western hands,
Another hotel built turns to another thousand bones forgotten
Like the land being constructed on, we too will be buried beneath the surface
But like our kupuna, we will not allow ourselves to falter under the influence of oppression
We will claw ourselves up from the cultural grave in which we’ve been buried
We will speak the language of our land; speak the truth the continent is too blind to see
Our land belongs in our hands
A fact that the nation will soon understand-
For I raise this question up to you,
What will you do?
Fight for the freedom of our land that has been tarnished not only by flames but the rakes of capitalism?
Fight for the bountiful past of our home to become the future again?
Eō, Ka Malu ʻUlu o Lele.
Bailey Baybayan was born in Denver, Colorado and moved to Maui at a young age. She is an industrious student at Kamehameha Schools Maui who enjoys writing and playing music in her downtime. Her passion for creative works is driven through her studies.
Hawaii Pacific Review 