My love, my pity go out to Koloa;—
Her fare, wilted herbs at Malei.
Hiiaka—true poet that she was, and alive to every colorable aspect of nature—as she trudged on her way, came upon a sight that touched her imagination; two birds were sipping together in loving content of the water that had collected in the crotch of a tree, in which also was growing an awa plant.—Such nature-planted awa was famed as being the most toxic of any produced in Puna.—Her poetic mind found in the incident something that was in harmony with her own mood, and she wove it into a song:
O ka manu múkimukí,
Ale lehua a ka manu,
O ka awa ili lena
I ka uka o Ka-li’u;
O ka manu ha’iha’i lau awa o Puna:—
Aia i ka laau ka awa ona o Puna,
O Puna, ho’i, e-e!