Joy is the color of the rainbow in Hawai'i

(First recited at the Diversity Matters Week, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, March 8, 2008. James Ramos, an Ilokano student of the Ilokano Language and Literature Program, helped me dramatically recite this including an excerpt of my play, "Red Earth, Brown Earth."

Joy is the color of the rainbow
In the valleys in the bare bosom
Of the clear sky
Where here resides, remains
The laughter of the mountains,
Tied together in looking out
To the flock of birds
Flying towards the contented universe
Declaring a duel and all of us,
All of us who have left
The sad seas and our sorrows
Turned our backs
To the void of justice
Whether on the grace of meal we count
Whether on the grace of the heavens we count
So that here, in the embrace
Of a day that smiles
Her we count the thread of the seasons,
We recall the delicate experience
So there is no encore to grief.

Joy is the color of the rainbow
And so is the color of justice.

Justice with all the hues
For all those who are rendered wretched:
The blue sand, for instance,
There the early dark mornings go to die
Their death bought by those who lie
Those who do not know anything except to lie on their backs,
Saunter and go scot free in the place where equality takes on vacation
Because here, the callused hands have to remain patient
And so are the strained backs
Like the mind that goes strained as well by this black hardship
By the beading of the red rosary of our being oppressed.
What gives, say the white wisdom,
What gives in whichever we reach
Even when good pink luck backs off
Or goes springing forth
Beyond the events that are foolish.
Like the carelessness of the breeze
Its permitting the cheat to imprison
Rest and well-being
So that on their beds, there they possess
The color of the rainbow the color of our pains?

But the color of the rainbow
Comes back to our vision: we are the prophesy
Of the same joy with all its colors.


A Solver Agcaoili
Hon, HI
Mar 6/08