Kai Ola Oceans Alive Poetry Contest champions
These students were the first-place winners in the Kai Ola Oceans Alive Poetry Contest sponsored in part by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin's Newspapers in Education program. Students statewide were invited to express their feelings about the sea, in English or Hawaiian.
GIGI MURRAY
Grade 5, Ka'elepulu Elementary; First place, Elementary School Category
The Ocean
The animals are its children
The waves are its heartbeat
A passage to worlds yet undiscovered
Feelings of rage can kill many, and kindness
can feed families, but slowly our ocean is
dying. Its children over-fished, its heartbeat
polluted. We need to take care, for if the ocean
is gone, our hearts will be too.
Runners-up: Jared Williams, Grade 5, Na'au, second place; Gwynette Paez, Grade 3, St. Theresa, third place
DANNY OLSON
Grade 8, Kaimuki Christian School; First place, Middle School Category
Life's Intrigue
Come to the sea and celebrate
An awesome adventure awaits
The magnificent sea life
Bedded below that our powerful
Master creates.
White capped shore breaks beckon,
Then retreat onto the shore
An endless, untiring, eternal tug of life
Covers the footprints, once more.
The coral, the sand, the salty air,
The blue from the depths below --
To understand this masterful plan,
Believe, and let your spirit grow.
Runners-up: Devin Caspillo, Lanikai Public Charter School, second place; Nick VanDer-Kamp, Lanikai, third place
KATHLEEN DE LARA
Sacred Hearts Academy; First place, Upper Grades Category
Free Spirit
As the summer rays took over the clear June sky
we raced to the beach with heated necks and mosquito-bitten thighs.
Excited, exhausted, anxious and eager
Our worries washed away with the ocean so regal.
It was calm, free, waves would go and come.
Nothing could stop the flow, not even its own rhythm.
Beneath that peaceful façade lay a power that could hurl,
but here it laid before me
my connection to other worlds.
Runners-up: Katya Cessaro, Honolulu Waldorf School, second place; Robert Lau, Grade 10, Na'au, third place
KAPAHULEHUA SANDERS
Grade 6, Hauula Elementary; First place, Hawaiian Language
Hau'ula Kai
O Hau'ula Kai
E pa mai o Lanakila
Onaona
Momona ka limu
Ma ana
Momona na i'a
Onoloa
Momona i ke kai
Aloha
E moe mai i ka one
Mahana
Hau'oli No
Mahalo No
Each child wons a trip for four aboard the Hawaii Superferry.
