Fire Dragon
for Linus Chao
Lao Ye sits at the edge of hala trees
where rolls of brown and yellow
seas eat thorns of dried lauhala.
He seeks Tai Nainai, finds
a fishing canoe instead.
Ma ke kai pōlena o Waimanu
aia ka manu kiko ʻeleʻele
e lele aʻe i ka lewa nuʻu
e lele ana i Kapō‘ula
Aloha aku, aloha mai ē
There are the kiʻi, ready and wet
from the Qi of a horsehair brush.
Kū ka pae uli huli aku nei
kū ka pali uli huʻi ka makani
aniani ka lehua onaona
kū ka ʻōhiʻa a e ola ka honua
Aloha aku, aloha mai ē
Nā ‘aumakua steer him
into the breeze that curls
through spines of bamboo trees.
‘O ke ao kea lohe iā ‘oe
hoʻolono kou nānea i ka wao akua
Hao mai ka ua ‘Awa o nā kama ē
Ua lele ‘oe i Kapō‘ula
a ua noa, a ua noa ē.
Lao Ye sits on the back of the fire dragon,
smokes incense from Shandong to Hawaiʻi.
He stretches from cloud to ka nahele,
paints around the white of sky,
with blue, purple, and red.
Aloha aku, aloha mai ē
Aloha aku, aloha mai ē
No nā kupuna, he inoa.
Copyright © 2022 by Sage Uʻilani Takehiro. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 30, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.
“This poem is for my grandfather, Linus Chao, who was an artist from Shandong, China. He is known as the ‘Father of Animation’ in Taiwan. He received a ‘Living Legend’ award in Hilo, Hawaiʻi, where he is genealogically connected through the marriage of his oldest daughter to my father, who descends from the natives of Waimanu and Waipiʻo. ‘Fire Dragon’ is a prayer for my Hawaiian ancestors to receive my Chinese grandfather and to guide his spirit through the ancestral space. It was composed on May 1, 2019 in Olaʻa, Hawaiʻi, as his last exchanges of breath painted a bright rainbow across the afternoon sky.”
—Sage Uʻilani Takehiro
Sage Uʻilani Takehiro
Sage Uʻilani Takehiro is a Hawaiian poet and the author of Honua: A Collection of Poetry (Kahuaomanoa Press and Kuleana ‘Ōiwi Press, 2007). The recipient of awards from the Hawaii Publishers Association and the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, she is from the Big Island.