The spring 2005 edition of Bamboo Ridge just arrived and should be in stores in the near future. Among its features is this poem by O'ahuan Christyanne Passion.

Passion is a nurse who has always wanted to write and began taking writing classes little more than a year ago. She studies at both Hawai'i Pacific University and the University of Hawai'i, and her poems have received an American Academy of Poets Award and a Hemingway Award.

Passion recalls visiting a relative on Sand Island when the place had a much different character. Here, a simple act — going down to the beach to polish gourd drums on the pebbly strand of Sand Island — takes on a deeper meaning.

SAND ISLAND REVISITED

By Christyanne Passion

I drive past the rusted tower —

sewage sea water taints the air

rubbish weeds litter the view

was it here?

My uncle's fishing village, my weekend home? No

not here. No this tent city this drug haven this

attemptable manicured park

I drive past to where

parking lot meets grassy field.

Bowed, I step here for the first time in twenty five years

Sand Island. I am not here

to fish or pick seaweed

Those days are gone. I come

to make ipu heke with my brothers and sisters. Together

we go over the grassy slope to the sand divide. I see

Waves still curl diamonds and Sun still burns

my hapa-haole skin. Sand still is large and coarse, not fine

like imports at Waikiki

We need rough to smooth our ipu

We need rough to shape our way

Our laughter carries over to Mokauea

Resurrected, the shore break chants — we remain we remain we remain

Reprinted by permission of the author. This poem previously appeared in the fall 1988 issue of Hawai'i Pacific Review. Poems for this column are selected by books editor Wanda A. Adams. This column does not accept unsolicited poems and considers only poems previously published in an independent anthology or collection.