They want to build the world's largest telescope on the tallest mountain
It is tallest when you measure from its base on the floor of the ocean
Taller than Everest
This telescope will see almost to the beginning of time
because when we look out we are looking back
So far not even the world's largest telescope will show us
something that has not yet happened
But still and all time moves in all directions
It moves over there to your grandmother's great great grandchildren
It moves here to the time someone left the water on
And every drop was drained from the city
It ran out into the gutters and found the bay and eventually the ocean
Which became less salty then
Here is another direction for time
Let it take you around the bend
into the era of lilac colored jacaranda trees
purple flowers carpeting the ground beneath your feet
yellow pants under scarlet dresses
pale woven lauhala hats on smiling men
dancing with Fred Astaire flair
See the hula moving back in time to the lost Chiefess
Clinging to the ways of far back
Where women could not partake of food with men
Where you a common person would be put to death
Should you tread upon the shadow of the ali'i
See her fight to the end of life rather than move forward
When her culture shifts
Look now upon the faces of the earnest people
People who claim the mountain
People for whom the telescope is a terrible thing
It will be too big, and there are too many telescopes, they say
They call the mountain Sacred
It is about the culture of a lost kingdom
Brought forward in time despite suppression
reborn in the realest of senses
as fire impaling water in pentatonic scales
glass forest sublime golden waves
ancestors with sharp rows of teeth riding the azure waters
On the mountain Kilauea I sit within walls
constructed of a torn down church
I hear the choir singing oftimes when the late rains fall
anthems of seeking that which is on high
Look out here, see Mauna Kea, the link between heaven and earth
Mauna Kea, the mountain that longs to see everything
as far back as possible
is this not why she has thrust herself up
and become the bridge to all that is not
of this earth
E aha 'ia ana o Mauna Kea
What is going on with Mauna Kea
White Mountain reaching ever farther into the sky
May you touch the stars and tell us where we all came from
Show us our beginnings
Help us find the rest of us in the vastness of all there is
Mauna o Wakea
