 My first poem is called When We Tell. So I know English was brought by white people to our country, but when we speak it, when we slur that language like sinews of mindfulness, extracting our teeth, grind it with coral and iron wood in our mouths, when we tell of the gritty taste, we've got to have a tongue in way of doing it. I think so, right? And then I, yeah, so like, I think sometimes, no, you know, Kimmy, you know, I don't want to talk too much. Like you said, you know, okay, because I am a real talker, so I'm just gonna not talk too much. If you haven't noticed, I'm kind of a talker, huh? Like, well, that one is real chatty. So this poem is called At Tu. It's actually a, it's a small island in the archipelago of the Cook Islands in eastern Polynesia, Spai Tahiti. This is a place that I lived and I just returned from it. I lived there for actually many years. At Tu. Driving back from Marae Orongo, that's a sacred site. I turn left to go to the harbor. I must see that large, magnificent sea and talk with the speckled chickens gossiping among the brittle toa tree leaves. This is my birthright to call in my ancestors for comfort. I'll pick this red hibiscus. The edges of my eye stack, wrinkles, the jagged shine can't lie about the lives I've lived. My hair is spotted gray like the chickens. This part of you wrap can't reach the other side of my mushy belly. Antibiotics can't help these mosquito bites still oozing with pus. I'll wear this bright, beautiful red hibiscus in my hair. Lay with coconut and toa trees. We'll watch the waves lap in and out to ease the shattering of our hearts. Thank you. I'm gonna keep my reading really short today as I don't know, I'm not gonna explain. No, so, and then this poem is called Tui Tui. Tui Tui. Okay, curry apla. Have any of you seen those candle nut lays that people wear? They're like black nuts, right? So they're called kuikui in Hawaiian. And I think most people get it from Hawaii probably or something like that. And so, but they're in, you know, they're around the Pacific and they're in Tongan is called Tui Tui. And they're used to, they're like an astringent and also a moisturizer. And so they're used to bathe babies. And then also they're used for ceremonies for the dead, you know, when people pass away in their bodies. So this is called Tui Tui. Touching, holding the trunk of our coconut, patting the tufts of moss climbing its back, feeling the light breathing of coldness in May. Our gods talking were startled by fleeting birds. What does it mean when the May, that's a breadfruit, sheds its rusty leaves quicker than the moko regrows? The lizard, the gecko. What does it mean, excuse me, watch me. What does it mean when the daughter who loves you is silenced by the sting of your palm on her face? For the siyale, that's a gardenia, to open in abundance, you must witness words steaming from lungs of restless boys standing under light post-shadows of bold girls who laugh like over-boiling the teapot. The frothy white blossoms brown as the galonica gala climbs its trellis and rests on boa trees. That's like the frangipani, you know, a lot of people know that one, the plumeria, and walkways. Out of this, something is being said. Have you said on the calf of the old ovava that's a banyan tree, just above the knotted ankle, hung onto its brooding beard? You know, a god dropped a tuitui. You picked it up, you cracked it, chewed it with mohokoi, into a lather, your knowledge of home. I'm talking to the child in our bellies, almost right. No, thugolangme, it's not for you to be confused with who is the god, what god? Is there a god, where is that god then? See, the same tuitui stands, the one we gathered the lather from when my mother was young. Rub your bodies, sense of petals, bark, hard nut, heavy rain, breezes of salt, milk, earth. It is a finanga, a riddle, a way of life. It is a god, our knowledge, our resistance, the lather of tuitui still supple on our skin. Malo, malo, malo, kainga. That's just, thank you, thank you, relatives. And then this poem to the young Tongan poets. You know, it's just, it explains itself to the young Tongan poets. Yeah, so much love to the young Tongan poets, you know, because I'm like an older Tongan poet now. And so, yeah, like Kim said, you know, you've got to, we have to know our ancestry and part of being an older Tongan poet, I have to know when I was young. I have so much love for them. And Kaya, I have so much love for you and for the beauty you brought. And I saw how that's so connected to your mom, Kimmy, and the beauty you brought us. So I'm just so humbled to be here in this space. So to the young Tongan poets, if you write one love poem, you must write another to sustain it. Then you must build on that one and then get up and do it again. Sometimes there's a crescendo, the rush of milky waves on volcanic rocks, slowly retreating like the lull of the sun resting. A matter of moments before you begin again. It's never easy. It's never easy. You know, sometimes you turn up siempre hace frio and you weep, adonde estas, adonde estas. And the young Colombian waiting along with you for a washer doesn't turn away. He looks back knowingly and you must pretend to check on your clothes because his generous gesture humbles you and you begin to cry, standing with neighbors in a laundromat in your soiled concrete square of a poor neighborhood. Long hours for low wages is the unkempt whisper that roams the streets. Every poem, we know this Tongan poets. Every poem we lay down is a dream. Making peace with the forces that ripped away everything they could reach. A poem is meticulously dressed in Kie and Ngatu. That's our top of cloth. A wedding day, the merger of the past and the future in the present is the 21st birthday celebration of a young Tongan poet bringing down the house to the all, whistles, applause, beer-run toasts of distant relatives and homies at an empty squatted home. And an empty squatted house in Rose Park, Salt Lake City in February at 4 a.m. in the morning where homeless men fished the Jordan River sighing at the direction of island guitars and zapping Roger, taking them back to their first night in the soft arms of a hotel in Saigon. A poem is a night of gava where Billie Holiday wearing a siale sei is lead singer and Melissa Etheridge comfortably in her jeans follows on lead guitar. A poem is a fragrance of the wikihe lala night you wanted to stay up until dawn, walk hand in hand to Wa Fu Wuna and feel the strength held in the neck of the boy seated in front of you at the Sivi Hiva but you follow your friend's home to sleep for school the next morning. A poem makes us consider, because I'm Tongan, we have a monarchy. A poem makes us consider when our grandmother talks about the Tongan Prince, we think of Malcolm and Tupac who showed us clearly what a doa must choose to do in a time of crisis. And when our uncles are busy preparing for the Tongan King's visit to the Bay Area, we think of Martin who we hold close in our hearts and connect him to women and men who ushered him down the aisle to the forefront of a movement that has made it easier for us in this country. A poem is knowing there's only $5 left in your welfare account, but you find $20 and you split your good fortune with Maverick Square Maddie over a cup of coffee at the Sumner Street Dunkin Donuts. You know, putting your daughter or your son to sleep, you open the windows inviting in a mixture of streetlight and recadon. You sit down and weep another night of writing every poem. We know this Tongan poets. We know this San Francisco poets. Every poem is a love poem. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.