1.

He ui. He nīnau.E ui aku ana au iā ʻoe:

Aia i hea ka wai o Lahaina?Where high bent forests in fog?Where cloud cover? Where rain?Where full stream flow freed?

Aia i hea ka wai o Lahaina?Not in the dry kahawai wherethe waters should run to flowover all the roads that wereblocked and detoured to Pō.

Aia i hea ka wai o Lahaina?Not above where dark cloudsshould be black with wai, andemptying to white until whitemeans empty, waiting to be filled.

Aia i hea ka wai o Lahaina?Some remains in the thin veins of Kanahā,Kahoma, Hālona, and Kāuaʻula.Barely in the warm breath of Kilihau, Pōhakea, or ʻImihau, in the dry wheezes ofHulialopali, Waiuli, or Wehelaunu.Some in nā ua Kilihau me Kapāʻūpili if they come.No longer in Mokuhinia.No longer a lei for Mokuʻula.

Drought is an old war.

2.

Aia i hea ka wai o Lahaina?

Wind rufflesthe surface of the ocean

the tide is lowthe bare reef exposed

in the distancehow sharp

the peaks of the western mountains

as Lele and Laha ʻāina became Lā hainā.

They planned our thirst for centuries.

3.

Eō e nā kupa o Lahaina:

we uē with you,aloha with you.

Kaumaha claws inside usfor the dead forced to bury themselves,

for the missing, for the swaths of blackand benzene that bled into the wai,

for everyone bleeding ash.We uē for generations.

Watch us light propane stoves and cookvenison on hibachi, clean and share fishfrom our lawaiʻa, kalo from our mahiʻai,everything sweet and green from māla,from kumulāʻau still standing elsewhere,thousands of scoops of rice—

watch us feed each other.

Watch us make our own supply routesfrom flatbed trucks, jet skis, and boatsfor cots, diva cups, tents, tarps, gas cans,headlamps, walkie talkies, blankets,diapers, and generators

and bottles and jugs and barrels of wai

Watch our medics practice consent.Slow and mahalo. Watch our constellationof Venmo’s and GoFundMe’s shine.Watch every kupuna, every keikitreasured, every ʻohana taken in long afterthe expired hotel and airbnb vouchers.

Watch us protect the water.Watch us make our own puʻuhonua.Watch us teach them how.

4.

Aia i hea ka wai o Lahaina?

as we pule, uē, and rage, pule, uē, and rage,wai flows and weaves memory and dream–our wai maka feed the soil

and sing the rains of Maui awake.

We will grieve.

We will grieve.

We will grieve.And piʻi ka huhū.

And we will still be gentle with each other.

The Maʻaʻa breeze is steady.We will teach them how again and again.

But we can keep asking:Aia i hea ka wai o Lahaina?Aia i hea ka wai o Kula?Aia i hea ka wai o Maui?Aia i hea ka wai o ka pae ʻāina o Hawaiʻi?

We can tell our keikiwe protect each otherand all we aloha, tell themwe stayed so we can

bring the water back.

We can billow steamuntil it rises so thickits malu, its kilihune, cools and cleans

all of this

ʻāina aloha—

until the wai,

until the wai,

until the wai.

And hū ke ola.

5.

Lahaina, he ʻāina momona.Lahaina, he ʻāina i aloha nui ʻia.E ola Lahaina. E ola i ka wai.

(This poem originally appeared in You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World.)