‘O Poli‘ahu i ke kapu, eō mai ‘oe

Ua ō mai ‘o Poli‘ahu

The snow has returned to the Mauna on the flash of lightning and rumble of thunder.

When I was little, the snow draped the mountain top in ways that it rarely does now. I can still remember feeling the shift in the wind bringing the chill of the peaks into the town, through our windows and onto our skin telling us the snow was coming. Till this day, no matter the season, I have to sleep with at least three blankets to feel the weight of the warmth because I was raised by fog, stinging rain, and cloud formations that feed four rivers. My Papa raised my mother and her siblings on the hill sides of Hōkū‘ula and ‘Owā‘oaka, where he taught my mother to slide down grassy slopes on flattened cardboard boxes - where she now takes us to find our laughter again. From there, you can see the expanse of the mountain through Waimea eyes. Generations of my family were raised in the protection of this mountain - lived and loved in the mists of Lanimaomao. This is why I know in my heart that my songs come in through the window just like the cold chill of the Mauna does. The songs of my kūpuna live in that anu kīpu‘upu‘u and they tell me when the snow is coming. When I join the realm of the ancestors when my time here on this earth is completed, I will sing with them to the descendants of Ke‘alalaua‘e so that they will always know the coming of the snow.

‘O Poli‘ahu i ke kapu, eō mai ‘oe.