(In memory of Queen Lili’uokalani of Hawaii,
1838–1917, on the 133rd anniversary of
the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom)

•••

It is not the first time that the country
I think of as mine has muscled its way
into another and bent unwilling
people to the will of outsiders.

There’s a long list of which we should
be ashamed, including the overthrow
of the last Hawaiian monarch
on this day in 1893,

a queen deposed by a group of
mostly American insurgents,
mostly for their financial gain,
altering the history of the most
isolated islands on the planet
forever.

They later put the queen on trial
in her own throne room, accusing her
of plotting against those who usurped her—
or at least knowing about the attempt—
convicting and imprisoning her on
the second floor of her palace.

Each visit to that room leaves me
in tears as I stand before the quilt
quilt where the queen’s embroidered
handwriting lives—the one she and her
companion stitched after being convicted
of treason against the country that had
forcibly taken her kingdom from her.

Nine quilt blocks, some fabricated from
the queen’s clothing, inscribed with the dates
she took the throne and abdicated it:

Her Majesty Queen Liliuokalani.
Imprisoned at Iolani Palace. January 17th 1895.
Companion Mrs Eveline Melita Kiloulani
Kaopaokalani Wilson. Released Sept 6th 1895.
We began this quilt here.

To think that my country, ’tis of thee, could
attempt the overthrow of another innocent
island—the world’s largest—ignites long-
simmering outrage I thought I’d quelled.

But here we are, and I am as deeply shamed
by the actions of would-be empire builders
as some must have been in the 1890s,
as I whisper a long-ago overthrown queen’s
motto: ʻOnipaʻa.

May those islanders, like their Hawaiian
counterparts more than a century ago,
stand firm, steadfast, immovable in purpose
as they strive to protect what is so rightfully
theirs.