He Mele no Kekuni

Abstract

I will never forget the night I learned of his passing into the realm of our ʻaumākua. I was at a poetry workshop with a bunch of other aloha ʻāina at Keawanui Loko Iʻa on Molokaʻi. That ʻāina momona and beloved community gave me the safe space to cry and eventually to write this poem. It is a kind of mele inoa for the great meʻe ʻonipaʻa, Richard Kekuni Akana Blaisdell. E ola kona inoa!