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• 1 2025-06-26T10:35:17-04:00 "The Journey" by Karlo Mila, contributed by Kiani Akina (2025) 2 plain 2025-06-26T10:36:38-04:00 For my contribution to the scalar platform, I would like to include Karlo Mila's Malaga: The Journey (from Goddess Muscle, 2020). The poem is part of her larger collection of creative work in Goddess Muscle, and the excerpt can be found on her website by scrolling down past her last book mentioned on this page, "Dream Fish Floating" (https://www.karlomila.com/books).

  Malaga: The Journey (from Goddess Muscle, 2020)
  
  (for Alice Suisana Hunt)
  
  It is a spindrift
   that rises from the body.
   Our final exhale
   beyond the breath,
   where we give ourselves up 
   in completion
   to life.
  
  Where everything that you are
   leaves behind 
   everything that you were.
  
  
   Departing 
  
  that faithful friend 
   of the body. 
  
  Its soft limbs.
   Its forgiving flesh. 
  
  Muscles, skin, sinews ‒
  
  all that held you together ‒
   so gently,
   for so long.
  
  A song 
  
  of water, blood,
  
  breath and bone.
  
  
  We acknowledge all that you have left behind.
   
  
  All that you have given.
  
  And what a life you have seen,
   and what a life you have been
   and how we have loved you.
  
  We stay here,
   with that precious vessel 
   that carried you
   through this life,
   but cannot carry you
   into the next.
  
  And may we who loved you,
   holding the song, blood and bone vessel of your being,
   may we carry the meaning 
   of your life forward
   into the world of light,
   so that it will reach
   those who come after.
  
   He waka herehere ngā waka.
  
  The vessel that binds us
  
  to the great moving fleet.
  
  We know that it’s your time to depart,
   to embark on an ancient route of return,
   along the terrestrial contours of this land
   that has birthed and fed you,
   this land on which we stand,
   towards a celestial flight-path 
  
  beyond the wingspan of birds,
   into the stars, 
  
  towards the warmer weather of our dreams,
   towards islands we have held gently in our memories,
   where we once belonged.
  
  At Te Rerenga Wairua, 
   where two oceans meet,
   a pōhutukawa tree still holds,
  
  waiting for you
   with a fragrant, green-leaved, 
   red-crowned,
   farewell.
   
  
  The whole earth heaves
   a sigh of release.
  
  And from here,
   wreathed in red and green, 
   you will bid us farewell
   and begin to travel the ocean roads.
   The sea path traced by star walkers,
   past Tongatapu, to ‘Uvea and Futuna,
   where with the splitting of rocks, it all began.
   
  You will enter the deep, blue channels 
   of ocean and night
   and move between worlds
   of underwater darkness and celestial light.
  
  You will take flight.
   
  Until you reach Savai’i
   and follow the black lava fields
   towards the last rites.
   
  
  Here, you will be cleansed 
   in the waters of Falealupo.
  
  The final farewell at the seashore.
   It is here we face that truth,
   that you are westward-bound.
   Ia Manuia Lou Malaga.
   Blessed be your journey.
   Follow the shining trail 
   of the setting sun 
   towards the great mystery
   beyond all of our knowing.
   We must trust then, 
   in all we cannot understand,
   and like the land,
   heave a heavy sigh of release.
  
  O le mavaega nai le tai e fetaia'i i i'u a gafa. 
  
  The farewell at the seashore, 
   with the promise 
   to meet again in the children.

  I chose this poem as it serves as a ceremonial a hui hou (Hawaiian expression for "until we meet again," as opposed to a "farewell"), guiding the spirit/soul from this physical realm into the ancestral realm. This poem honors the physical body as a `vessel` and expresses gratitude for life, memory, culture, and relationality. This poem profoundly touched me because it centers around Indigenous Pacific beliefs around death, pulotu, and the afterlife through the journey of the spirit, through sacred places like Rerenga Wairua, and ancestral ocean routes. This meditation on grief, transition, and ancestral relations has provided me with deep comfort after the suicide of my younger cousin last summer. In a Pasifika worldview, death is not nearly the end of life. It is a part of a larger journey, one bigger than the individual, and a passage binding and connecting kūpuna (ancestors), community, and individuals. 
  
  
  
  After sleeping on it, I’ve been reflecting more on the depth and importance of Karlo Mila’s Malaga: The Journey, and I believe it would be beautifully complemented by the Māori waiata "Kei Wareware i a Tātou" by Te Kuru Marutea. The song’s theme of remembrance and collective mourning aligns closely with the poem’s meditation on grief and ancestral connection. I think it might comfort anyone who comes in contact with these pieces.