To Lihue, and the Japanese cane laborers
Died in waves through the early 1920s,
A devastation mostly unremarked
By history — per se — but now it makes sense:
The masks, the distancing, the closings of
Theatres, churches and schools; the strands connect
In the next lives of those who've forgotten
— How some know, without proving how, and some don't
Because they didn't learn the first time —
How they hold hands now, teachers and learners,
Never puncturing the silence, what's holy
And lies between them, what's become the only thing.
