Surfing At Laperuse

SURFING AT LA PEROUSE: The complete black sea songs By L.A.

To the only inspiration of these black sea songs Ms. G.T. happiness And eternity

Promised By This living poet Wishes you My well wishing Adventurer Sound voyage In setting Forth To Debbie and Morton: Where she the she I sing about There would be only praises all day long And he the one who takes me Through stones that wall the sea Then must I crack And be no more my shell But have a voice as beauteous as the sea To Prakash without whom I could not have found the courage Oh Dylan, mighty sailor and wordsmith How could you drink yourself to death And think your words lacked power To stay a mighty course To my loving son Matthew Hoping you enjoy these love songs As I enjoy you To my young daughter and youngest son Halley and Luke Hoping you find yourself well Tucked in with these poems

I. Let me not tear the ancient nets Nor spill the days catch But hold the rudder and set my sights On the forbidden Island of Niihau Where the old culture still hears

The pounding of the sea’s waves And knows the vast blackness of the soul’s journey II. Feeling her gyrate in the rolling foam Her crunch and grind How hard her body calls out And I am bound To the inexorable litany Of her black sea song While her soft cold arms Fold me into her singing place III. Her waves are languid and torpid A few minnows dart carelessly In her black pools Where are the sea moans And wild thrusts of yesterday Even the foam is quiet Nothing remains but the odor of fish and algae Perfuming the shores IV. Come dance with me my lady Weren’t we lovers in a former life Well what the hey A lot of things happened yesterday Not worth remembering at all But when I see your light upon the surface And your splendid iridescence far from shore Then my soul longs To drench in your sea musk V. Gray black old wizened rocks You chorus of troglodytes Proclaiming your lewd judgment Of my vast empress, the sea Were she not so beautiful Beyond your vision There might be some wisdom in your scorn But I am alive Adrift on her chanting pulse

Like a big bass glistening into shore VI. My love is newly fresh this morn And wears her turquoise mantle to the dawn How beauty whips the breeze around her How clear her voice rolls into shore I am melting into sea eyes and briny lips Like a thing eternal, metempsychosed Into her dream VII. Why I think your tide pools Are your most sexy things I’d call them buff If they were not so sweet How still you lie with gentle circles Moving on your surfaces And spiny urchins tucked into your reefs Why maybe you have no breasts at all Just nipples there for me to suck VIII Oh god I dreamt I saw a shark Between your thighs The power of his body beating still Your green hair so fragrant How could I compete A stranger with a different language Loving you from a distant shore I feel so small like some beast Slouched in the blowholes Howling his anguish to the empty sky IX. This morning I woke to find your womb A perfect entrance to a safe harbor Edged in grasses and succulents And lined with copper gold How would I know you would find Such a pleasant spot to conceive in Blood red orange, burning amber Oozing its fluid for the next true king

X. Waking from a volcanic slumber Images rise and flow like Streams of bursting lava Leading to white rock shores Across the fishbowl to Kahoolawe And beyond Bodies lifted by the wind Thrown to the ocean depths Blown to far islands Like newborn babes they tumble forth Falling into dark endless holes To who knows where XI. Hey what’s up? Frisky this morning Tossing up all that foam I can’t tell which way your tide is running Jesus, that’s a lot of spray I’m soaking wet. Do you want my attention Or are you just trying to distract me From my depressing thoughts Why do I shrink looking at my words Like some chaotic jumble These are my songs, my moods Why deny them? Just hold your sword for me And like some Roman senator of old I’ll run upon it.

XII. Damn you, what’s the scoop It must be one hellava bath you’re taking You are an artful bitch When it comes to turning me on The way it started between you and me Just meeting and already my child Lies in your womb Sometimes I think my soul will Never learn your graceful ways XIII. You disappeared for a while, or maybe it was me

And now we’re at each other’s toes again It’s a strange life, this dance we do You with your dark crevices and sea moss Trickling so dainty into shore Just a coquette That’s what I love about you So why am I surprised about your passions Have I become that prude I’ve always hated Only wanting to get my ankles wet Sure, I can’t blame you When it comes to a few deep thrusts I’d take the shark too Yet who knows what beast I’m yet to be XIV. Let’s not admit impediment, you say To the marriage of true minds, But I am forced to, I hear your throaty murmurs Beautiful, you say Wilder, you cry More, you chant Your sound comes from the depth And takes a long time To reach my ear, Strength, you say, Courage, you whisper Rolling and rolling I let it flow

XV. I sit on the back of an old gray turtle, Waiting for you to crash at my feet You are taller than a Viking ship today Does it please you Well throw up another spray And watch me do back flips While my board flys in your skirts, As straight as the truth, Look at me now Hovering in the palpable sky, With you below, So fair, so foul

And me, the simpleton Waiting to match your mood Shouting, Oohwhowhowho Now and forever, In my innocence XVI. You there, you worthless stick, You lighthouse Shining to the ocean’s depths While I am in my foulest mood Without a scintilla to redeem me Watching my sweet sea Roll to her heart’s content Do you mock me, stick A white translucent diamond Indifferent to my passion To my soul’s wanderings Oh let me plunge from this huge rock Into her thousand crashing waves Let me sink into her blue dimension And let my dark soul shine For brothers lost at sea

XVII. Secluded, listening to your voice To your sounds calling me She real sweet now, bro Forty feet in the blowholes Get your board, no wind, Swells like the big easy Then more sounds Trumpets and more trumpets Naaah!. Naaah! A herd of wild goats Lunge from beneath the kiawe Crunching pell-mell through the lava My heart racing with their beauty While from my sacred spot I watch your solitary wave

XVIII This land is magnificent The sea, more than life itself The lava fields, black and monumental Shining iridescent stones along the water Green kiawe groaning in the wind I feel them as I feel you Rising inside me In ways I have always known Loving your sounds The quiet folding of your waves Lapping at the shore XIX. Out there now, rolling out of my depth, The wind howling in my ears Heated by the spray of your pulse Folded into an iridescent crystal world Rainbow after rainbow Wave after wave Floating molten reds No longer am I just A walking, crawling shape But have ceased to be And am not proud of me Or death or dying XX. Hey you again You’re new born this morning So light you seem Your gentle breathing draws my essence Your easy rhythm leads me on Your briny wave touches my lips Like the back of a hand, Chilling my senses While screeching gulls Cry out from shore XXI. I am the black sand of truer days And though Kahoolawe seems A long way from here I am the swimmer who means to make her shore

But you my love remain Boundless in your ways How can I be one With an unfolding divinity Fluid beyond conception Chilling, cold, remote I wonder if I will Endure in your embrace Or keep my own thoughts With their capacity for right observance XXII. You have been so quiet lately Each cove a reflection Have these terrible events subdued you Terror incognito As a child, I remember Every menacing threat How changeable you are And I have abandoned myself Like the sailor cast upon the shore With his swinish crew Rutting about him

XXIII. How often my restless and disturbed spirit Seeks your rocky coast And makes a fetish of obtaining calm How constant the chatter Stills my mind’s reflection But if I just listen To your murmuring stones And revel in your red streaked dawn Then all my senses See infinity in a mote of light Riding the ocean’s wall XXIV. Unreal winds Sprays flying like kites White water over white water Over white water Huge swells pound the rocks

Ashen boulders catch the tide Mindless in their incarceration Long since forgotten By ghostly twisted kiawe Standing on the shore XXV. It’s only me In your high winds Sitting on a log Rocked by your gusts Pushed down playfully Into your tall grasses Lulled by your watery thighs My heart at ease Hanging loose in your surf And I wade in my rubber boots Like a blind man Just cast my net And maybe catch some Then they mine XXVI. Hey waves Rolling naked in the dawn Your sweet little tits are up again Inviting, rising like blue mountains And your small triangle Frothy down below Come show me I have a good feeling about us today A wind has lifted my love And I am holding snugly in your barrels Your secret sharer Surfing peaks of burnished gold XXVII. I think for now I’ll keep my distance For I have doubled up Carrying your tablet of jade Instead let me bow to you As though offering a gift Though my feet recoil Oh Ku, Ku Let my mad songs

Reveal your dwindling power Too late now To condemn you for your past But look to your future! Great is the peril For those lost in your swells XXVIII. A choppy surf Waves cresting at fourteen feet Sliding pale blue walls of sea I pick my way along the lava trail Stumbling in the wind On the brink of a chasm Looking below, trembling I dread your embrace It is not that I do not love you Or that your home is too far away But I am blown back Like the petals of the lehua XXIX. I am your solitary lover, beyond time Lying now in your sandy cove Sea cosmetics thrown from our bed Debris strewn about us Above me you sit Wet and transpiring Pink shells and coral lips Weaving patterns on my enlightened heart And though for now I can not join you in your counsel I can take my place beside you Combing your pebbled shore XXX. I was the child by your shore Who lay at your breasts Enfolded nightly in your arms While whispering voices By the window went It was my time completely And I remember my brown body Full and firm The dark rings about my head And don’t you think I had a shovel

In my hand and walked your beaches The small conqueror who dreams Is it not passing brave to be a king And ride in triumph through Persepolis XXXI. Clouds over Haleakala gathering force Stretched across the lava fields Their last white feathers Touching on Kahoolawe And here and there your brush strokes Black dappled streaks Like immense caligraphies Working their way down volcanic slopes The sun painting its golden beaches The stones grinding at the water’s edge While my heart keeps hammering On heaven’s door XXXII. Jealous today, pelting me with rain Instead of tearing her eyes out, You made me walk back To put the top up on my car Well I wanted you to meet her You know our time together was different You’re a woman, she’s a girl Beauty must have two scales One for each of you XXXIII. Comte La Perouse, she calls me Her wide mouth flowing with laughter Sitting in my sheltered teahouse Under the kiawe watching the waves She’s a bit of a turn-on Greedily eating her food like she can’t get enough Telling me a hot story I told the nurse this morning No, I don’t care to put on a white gown What am I covering? Doesn’t he want to examine me? Her face glowing, when I make love I don’t want perversity. I want to fuck What is it about perversity? I used to clean house

There were chains on this guy’s bed Why would anyone want to be tied up? Her talk drifted like feathers Leaving me with guard posts On the inside as well as the outside XXXIV. I thought, is it my turn? Shall I reveal my perversity? Confess my abnormal soul? Or tell this graceful girl How I make love to you My sea woman So casual and easy Just sweet songs Humming in my ears XXXV. Just us, not a soul A breathing timeless world Before there were words Rising and descending The force carrying your waves Driving my heart as well To a passionate caress Indelible lines of soft white pebbles Black rock, damp pools Your fragrant yellow seaweed Dizzying my senses Feeling your light touch On my back XXXVI. A du ll rainy day And I roast on the spit Skewered by desire Mother, wife, daughter I want them all, black rock like walls Further than the eye can see Rolling volcanic mounds of earth Rolling hills, rolling waves beyond the shore While my heart is burning, blackening Like thick clouds hanging over Kahoolave In many lands goodness dwells But in your vast ocean I see only a false heart’s history

XXXVII. My love swears she is made of truth And I believe her, though she lies Hoping that I too might conceal That I another love, who loves me not But sighs on one who fits her passion best What link is forged, what complications rest She is my love’s best friend And I still love her who loved me once As well as her who loves another What veils of constancy are hidden here Free me, unbind my eyes Before I surfeit on this lovesick feast XXXVIII. These are the perturbations of my soul So many fallen stories Adventures filling blank pages When coming home means more to me Than just a country or a familiar shore My time is now to follow your wide sea The wave I ride has a current Who knows when The tide will cease Or the mysteries reveal themselves For all time wasted and drained I set my course XXXIX. Well I have come to know you And carry you here Beside me Like a witch’s familiar Flinging your spays upon the shore For better or worse I am in your spell No longer do I seek your beauty What I crave lies deep within Etched in your soul I cry, I cry For now, my time is better spent Learning how to serve your ways

XL. I may talk about you but not the eternal you You are the whole of swimmers in your depth And ships upon your surface Your way is to spare nothing Regardless of its beauty All that rises from your ocean floor Is either much at once Or unfathomable And yet I flow with you Through breathing waves Changing climates, surges and calms Deep currents beyond sea knowledge Beyond my experience

XLI. Yes! Yes! Bright sunlight Striking shadows on Kahoolave’s walls Rivulets of amber oozing from her surface And I am filled with perversity Imagining holes to sink my rod To what depths must I go To satisfy my lust And I am crazy for the smell of you After four days of Kona winds Didn’t we once sit on this rock Gazing on her island form Consumed by passions Until we burnt each other out XLII. My love, have you wakened from your bed And already must I force my thoughts upon you When you so sweetly offer yours to me This lava trail I walk is your choosing And I may take with me just a few belongings Step by step the story When there is one will emerge My path lies covered in the distance White markings show the trail A bit further now I follow closely Noticing each foothold Until I come out high above the sea

To view white caps stretched on the horizon Rocky cliffs lined with carvings Forgotten sculptures And below me a seat of stone Lined by holes buried in the rock For me to place my rod And watch my fishing grounds across the bay Where Kahoolave like a great white whale Blows up steam

XLIII. Between your love and mine There is a bellows, Breathing inexhaustible Between crashing waves and quiet coves And we are neither Substance nor permanent states But rather a courteous pair Joined by the vicissitudes of the sea And though you may appear to be A flattering shadow of my wild self In truth, you are my opposite pole Without you there is no fixed course No navigation, no grounding No high aspirations No true life XLIV. Today we made our camp On the same beach Where my love and I conceived You were in the brightest mood, Infected by the screaming of the children The jeeps mad bouncing, bumping ride Carrying backpacks from the lighthouse Down the lava trail The wind tearing at the pebbled beach Out of reach, beyond fishermen Two white coral kahi moe’s For shelter in the night And I delirious with pleasure Showing you places of beauty Pools and wild grasses, russets and greens Until I felt a loss of footing A slow timeless fall striking the lava

The searing pain Blood dripping down my face Nose, cheek, chin, hands I did it I thought, half believing, despairing And you so intently examining my face Look at you, oh you Now you are a true wild man Taking my head in your lap Listening for guidance

XLV. Wild face you call me Dreaming together Bathing my cuts How tender you approach A loving spirit Offering the message Leave now, get the children The sun is low on the horizon And then the form of you In the dusk in front of the jeep Your straight blonde hair And tall body bouncing High into the air, A new creature born A hoofed animal flashing in the headlights While the jeep moves over boulders, Hardly grinding gears Mesmerized by the divinity of a waterbuck You brought us out To fiery golds, oranges and reds XLVI. Leaving the children to watch a video The hospital’s emergency room The peaceful ether of the night The doctor’s small careful stitches Driving home Respectful of the silence We are in awe of La Perouse The ancient wordless knowing Gathering, forming An intimacy of comprehension, I see your vivid spirit

Acting wisely Moving beyond the body Into timeless reaches And true sleep

XLVII. Making pancakes, I have my insight These last few weeks of seeing How my life’s is spent In such denial of my love My heart breaking its sleeves The juices pouring Into every wave and tide pool My body waking muscle and bone Singing with the ocean’s song At the edge of high cliffs On the King’s highway On small lava trails Leading to the sea Too much for me to hold These old restrictions buried in my brain Striking one last blow Until I know That I am anchored On your quiet shore XLVIII. I had my stitches out today One last reminder Of my earlier days What will it be like When I see you next My heart longs To touch your splendid form Renew our acquaintance On a slightly different footing With more intimations I am newly risen Outside the constant currents of energy Waking into the world To more subtle forms And unlike others Who are full and over flowing

I am your solitary traveler Watching your iridescent yellow waves Enter and fill my heart

XLIX. May 30, 1786 Jean-Francoise Galaup, Comte De La Perouse First navigator to steer his frigates La Boussole and L’Astrolabe To beaches and islands unknown And now a few centuries later I land here on that same Keionio Beach Do I bear a kinship to this Admiral man Or is this another terror incognito Buried in my ocean depths Standing on their stretch of white pebbled shore Gathered spaciously in the dazzling light Of the underworld, living where the dead go Beings unconscious of your destiny Seeing you from across the bay Lowering your longboats This haole seafaring man Tell me right off the bat What thoughts entered your brain When you saw their massive Legs like tree trunks Not a group of court poets Strolling in the park Was your vision shattered By dazzling light Your first moment struck by Six hundred years of continuous survival In a world of burnt lava In thatched shelters With shallow wells hidden in the rocks Did you enter boundless dimensions Of endless seas rolling against cliffs Before you landed on their shore Were you angry at the murder of Captain Cook Or did you feel a patient heart Were you perceptive of their gifts And love these people As you love the truth

In that remote place Did you find some treasure

L. Shark Waters It’s a warm day, Miah And there are thin beads Of perspiration on your lips Your wide face smiles kindly What was it like out there With only a spear The blood of a fish Caught moments ago Crushed under your arm The white shark appearing Outside the currents between The cliffs of Kanaio and Kahoolave Not a reef shark but one of Those massive ones Smelling the blood Circling you in the water Not looking for a fight But for an easy feed Beating down on you from a distance And your heart jacking off Smashing his head Each time he came close Discouraging him Making him work hard Sharks lazy, you say Not so different from people But he hang with me Come again and again All the way back to La Perouse And each time he rams Your world bifurcates in so many places The depths enclose you Taking you home Gathering you Like beads of sweat On your lip

LI. Where I fell and cut my face Your pool has dried No traces of blood on the rock And behind it, the rock Where I slipped Covered with succulents Joyous yellow protrusions Cells like surface membranes Waiting to pop their juices And burst forth And in your womb I feel the copper muddy soil of conception Forming like an aria from La Boheme Opening me, gathering me up A week ago your wild jealousy Chased my new waterbuck From our sleeping place But now your heart has softened Your slender grasses Caress my face Abrade my scars Like bars of music Full of measure Rejoicing my way home LII. I found your slippers Still in our coral bed Ones with the Ono’s on them And feel their bumpy surface As they touch your soles So dear to me now you are that I could no longer live without you Your treasures Like yellow gold Rise from the ground We are true minds truly married Filled with a sacred impulse A pearly substance Oozing from our hearts

LIII. You catch fish Too low, wait for the tide He says, dark hair above his white shirt Rubber black boots clasping his ankles Red setter dog playing in the tide pools A game rolling back to back with her mistress. She’s your lady No strangers to the water Ancient people still living ancient ways As time filled travelers Pass them by Fresh cuts in the kiave Turn reddish brown A white stone hangs on its limb

LIV. Oh my love Heaven has set Her emerald gift About your heart A radiant presence Gracious and dazzling Circled by friends Even the cool air loves you Caressing this spot Above the sea The thin rain Refreshing and new Feels your acceptance Now is your time To turn around a million years Of crawling backwards I don’t know how we met But I have seen ships Crossing the ocean Guided by your way Rolling from dawn To lighted dusk

LV.

Was it just yesterday We celebrated your birthday Since that moment I’ve walked The ancient lava trail The King’s highway Feeling your presence Knowing it’s you Without needing to tell myself, Now I wear a visible scar A mark of yet another Coupling between us Subtle forms Rock and flesh melt And some pieces of you Are under my skin Leaving me stranded Only an approximation Waiting for your transport To carry me from certain pleasures To what is unfathomable LVI. How, I ask my self Does my new love Differ from my old One long distance The other near Equal in frustration My emptiness Waits for you Close by To enter my space For a brief moment Beauty’s hammer Fashions me A golden drop Seeps from a branch Translucent Back lit by sunlight

LVII. My sloop anchored in the harbor Sways with the morning breeze Calling me

How can I crack on Last night I thought I’d never feel this way again How quiet and strong I am In your arms So in touch with your rhythms My self rising And falling into your belly Will your spell ever break You are my light my doom Feeling your closeness I feed upon you like a sickness No amount of you is enough One need filled Another takes its place Pity me, release me Sail me home to my precious shore Waiting and waiting across the bay LVIII. Still moored in your bay My double mast furled I am consumed by jealousy Seeing you unfaithful Spent in his arms Half god, half man your lover What a clod not to have known You would succumb Poised above your limbs His blonde hair streaming His young face lashed by the wind Oh half god you have set me on Flames hotter than hell I would dive into the breakers But you block my way Enter uninvited my kahi moe Wanting to discuss Her alabaster thighs Her very texture How it feels to lie with her

LIX. Oh half god have you stumbled In just the selfsame way To pierce my heart with tales of

Failed journeys and ceaseless wanderings You need to heal, you say Showing me a red patch Above the pale white skin of your wrist Gently I take your hand and apply my herbs I may not appear so But I am a Chinese doctor And see that the world’s Indifference has poisoned you Left visible blemishes on your Byronic face Where are you from half god Sneakers out of fashion, high black socks Utah, you say Terror incognito must Have sent you and I can’t resist But fall into your arms And dream the Mormon sleep LX. Halfgodhalfgodhalfgodhalfgod I hear the sound of my voice screaming At chopping waves Spume flung against rock Your one night stand Wrecks me in a wake of Rage and black despair Why have you vanished Leaving me with everything I feel and am not And want to be Why am I slain by your beauty Tossed by your innocence Worn by your youthful charms Neither waiting nor not waiting Simply breathing by your shore

LXI. Oh half god How soon you disappeared I miss our discussion What was that trilogy of books you read One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest The Course of Miracles

And something hard to place What did I recommend, Sidhartha No you don’t know Buddah Well it’s o.k. Why do gods need Buddah Old men need Buddah Gods need rocks waves Bursting lava A pool fed from springs to bathe in Old men need space Gods want company Love passion sun And more rocks LXII. She belongs to us now Do you realize that We’ve shared her Breasts and down below Even talked about her Kissed the same sand Mandala on her thighs But to you She is fair innocence To me night and all eve The black dark cloud Hanging over Haleakala Eavesdropping On the breaking waves And I am bothered Wanting to know Why I can’t slow down Long enough to hear

LXIII. You my love, what was your deceit To be a wife and mother No, no that couldn’t be Why did you want a man Who had no need of you To come close, you said But that’s a myth

An unnatural thing When you are strong In your own space, you said Then I can feel my love So I listened to your lies When what you wanted Was to avoid A connected reality Grit rubbing into your oyster The soul happening And the pearl lifting from the sea LXIV. And me what did I want More frustration Death and dying Grief I could not handle A phoenix rising from the ashes No I did not want coupledom Not a Cheech and Chong of married life Though I did love you More, I thought than anyone Could ever love you But this was my conceit How I flattered myself When each time I fell head over heels In love with your laughter Slumbered in your perfumes Swooned with fever Waned with the ebb tide And vanished Like the evening sun

LXV. Pitched past all forms of grief Weighted by your rules You come to La Perouse And put me in prison For not following them When you walk here hiking by my side You think only of black and white But there is so much vibrant green Cradled by fertile blues

And polychromatic lava Ringing hollow Like dishes rolling on a cart And I am awake finally After two hundred years To voices speaking To all in me LXVI My love is A wild mountain goat Traveling through trails of lava rock Her black hair shining Concealing her existence Caught suddenly in my headlights Separating her from the herd How totally lost I made her feel Scared to death in a spell That I would make of her What I will And myself the hunter How will I write This page into my book Shall I make us white Embedded in black Gray juxtaposing gray And shall I say All who enter here Abandon hope and desire Hearing only the noise Of her black goat’s hoof Striking lava as she joins the herd

LXVII Gathered in a circle of gods Sitting here above the water’s edge Gazing at Kahoolave I know my time is past And I must swim now In raging storms and small waves To discover your treasure Let your schools of parrot fish Teach me to nibble quickly

Show me the ten thousand things Happening Weight me with faith and steadfastness Allow my arms to embrace force Stop looking for what is humane Be a straw dog Curious Studying nature Finding harmony LXVIII I am the traveler with no fixed plans No interest in arriving Simply following the dazzling light The fly on my jeans My arm and watch And all of us Forty feet above the water On the edge of a cliff Blinded by seas And cloudless ambition Above Kahoolave While the stream of endless light Flows home to the sea How easy it is with Only the world to enjoy

LXIX My sweet love appearing now As a wild mountain goat Recalls me to my godlike youth When my soul knew it had a rendezvous And must keep a record Walking the rolling hills and Trees that lined the cemetery Near my house Where I often dreamed Lying on my back Watching squirrels Racing up tree trunks Stopping to gaze into endless summer air

Until a chilling wind Ran through the gravestones Spiking the sky And ran through me And I thought Who would hear me if I cried out What being would come To me in my agony My limbs trembling in fear Until habit could right me Then I would rush And find myself In the stream below the house Where I searched For my passion My love My deer in the woods Living wild and terrified Each day I brought her food Carried it secretly in my pocket Held it for her Letting her contemplate The distance between us Moving forwards Taking it gently from my hand And in that moment we live still Weaned from each other As present is from past LXX We are the dreamy substance of ourselves Living for moments of unkind relief Thinking what we need is what we lack And lacking that which makes us feel complete We search for higher powers or distant shores Our grief is just a candle to our loss Revealing how bitter deep and ruthless Are our thoughts And gaining that which makes us feel complete Are empty still Blinded by sand blown against our face Hunted pursued violent half-mad insane Until the second comes to see our fate We rise and find it’s all too late LXXI

You love him still Though he is daddy to the core Hating your torment you insist Wanting him to wait You egg him on And when he’s near you can’t think straight Trying to please what can’t be had Pursuer pursued You think to enter bliss Leavemethefuckalone is more your kiss Knowing him, you know his bruising gait You love him best when you do hate If what I say is not so near the mark Then let me die before I slander more LXXII Oh god why am I so possessed When there are such Beautiful things for me to see Why am I attached to my ideas Yet faithless to my vision Sending out dark waves Unlike the kiave in the wind That has no view in mind But makes use of whatever Life brings its way LXXIII We made our walk Her photographic eye contrasting colors Arranging shots amidst the lava fields Her voice sighing, why do I berate myself For everything I do or don’t do What purpose does it serve To see my picayune failings In so harsh a glare Like a brown cloud blocking sunlight Staining a flawless picture When I was young we moved From Munich to Hamburg My father told me our new house Had trees standing in the yard Twice its size Each night before we moved I would pray that I would live To see those trees before I died Oh imminent death

Walking close by me on these cliffs I hear the clicking of your camera’s lens And watch you gather your presence Safely behind LXXIV I am sitting on a black rock Free to roam volcanic surfaces Play with my restless heart While your camera takes it all in Once you were Berlin’s best new young baker What coveted prize did you earn at school Why did you never work at your craft Why set the world aside and Use those five thousand marks To take you to India What guru did you follow To materialize now in my dream Wearing a heavy backpack in La Perouse Weighted with your camera With your jells, your mirrors and your things And will you be the woman I desire Or will you break like a little girl LXXV I am strengthened Watching your graceful postures In place after place Taking pictures of what I love And still am loving Until my soul unfolds And I am earth circling in your orbit One click and than another Caught in a moment Noticing jewels of sand upon your leg While you get too much sun on your nose And talk to me about hating your hat And the wide elegant straw hats You wore in Australia Did they also press your head Grip you in a vice Worrying about something You should see my mother, you say When I was young I was frightened by death I didn’t tell anyone but had One dream that kept recurring

Of my family boarding a train from the back Leaving me behind LXXVI I like when forms repeat themselves Do you know each person wears certain colors Out here I love the greens offset by black But haven’t gotten them yet with my camera I had a blue dress once So rich it almost looked wet When I looked down it felt I wasn’t there I gave it away after one day When I was seven I did not want to die I didn’t want the movie to end We are walking in a Heiau of lost time In the field of lava that hasn’t Disappeared with the ancient people And I am spun outward Whirling like a child By grown-up’s arms extended Placed down on earth Reeling with a new vision

LXXVII I am continuing my understanding of inquiry And what are my obstacles And of the seventeen obstacles Am I free of any or am I guilty of all Yes I have objective deficiency A lack of specificity There’s nothing I can’t claim That’s not my own Do I sink am I lazy indolent Give me a break I think I’ll tell a story How I was a poet and forgot it And now I am again fifty years older What happened to me Did I come awake Walking on a lava trail on a cliff In the middle of my life’s journey Halfway through these poems Swelling with joy

Falling on my face Ripping my nose open No, no I can’t have this intense pleasure The world will smack me down I lack art and scope My work’s not spacious I’m malcontented Dissatisfied, not good enough What did he say in response to my inquiry You’re just a big baby in your playpen La Perouse writing your songs Haahaaahaahaahaaa You didn’t talk about the obstacles at all I felt my blood rise and down I went And sank into my hating hell For all night and hours on end Until memories of you such pleasure brings Well, flat out I’d scorn to change my place with kings

LXXVIII I am Johannes Vermeer, a Dutch painter The time of which I speak is about the 1660’s I am a portrait painter, fashionable women mostly One of my best was the girl, Greit With the brown hat and pearl earring She worked briefly in my household A favor to a blind tilemaker Whose eyes were sewn after his kiln exploded It was her first position How earnest she was Studying the market stalls For the best cuts And studiously avoiding my wife’s jealousy Carefully attending to any details That might spur it She was spellbound by my work Showing her curiosity In time I taught her how colors Placed upon each other formed subtleties After that she could not stop Looking at things I let her buy linseed oil at the apothecary’s Or grind white lead How clever she was to manage her affairs To sleep above my studio

In the morning she arranged my brushes Secretly not to disturb my wife One day I asked her to sit So that I might paint her as I first saw her With her mouth slightly open Asking her to wear my wife’s pearl Would she be caught in my net I considered my lust And thought better of this way And I the poet of today, Vermeer himself Why didn’t I think like him Where was my strength of inquiry My love of truth Not to be transfixed By your radiant spell Waiting until the first sight vanished Refraining from burning our love Before it had a chance to be LXXIX Lady I am Billy Bones, alive To sing my black sea songs Like fifteen dead men On a dead man’s chest And you greedy pirates Waiting to hand me the black spot Murder me for a bottle of rum For my map of buried treasure And here I am now On a desolate island Bereft in a bleak room Lacking safe harbor Aching longing My gut knotted Wanting release from misery Remembering a life too soon ended Love too quickly lost Black rocks surround me Gray oceans are my shroud I have no wedding clothes No empress to marry But cast my lot on this Barren and empty shore LXXX I will not think a year’s misery over

Before the year is out My wife died in late December Since then my soul is Marred with a black stain Made hazy like a wave Echoing long after it has landed Why didn’t you let me go, you said Instead I wasted moments Being selfish and scornful Making you regret our life together Why did I need to control you So much sadness So little time As heaven melts Runs like red tears from Eyes shut in endless space LXXXI What is it like to be a father Well it’s field day for my Uber ego Spreading my mature wisdom Knowing more and better than And best Shrouding it in years lived And bungled Like an old skirt Hugging past your knees To drape you in But daughter Mind not the old buzzard Those few moments spent In your eyes Delight me beyond reason Beyond passion Beyond games of childhood And always your legs are Thrown about my neck Our hands hold tightly to each other And I walk taller than any man In park or street LXXXII Back to me you write your poem In double time and purple ink Saying life’s aim is to please me Reaching for goals that

Soar as high as mine Knowing that when salty rivers run I’m there and at 3 a.m. and you can Crawl into my arms for comfort An unconditional love An uncut string Feeling me now right beside you A candle showing not the entire dark Hallow all at once But in time revealing things A dead mother’s daughter Wise beyond your years Sending your hand into a timeless dimension Knowing living or dying Our souls comfort one another

LXXXIII Can those lava rocks that cut me Grind my soul Can they ground its performance As I trod steadily on the King’s Highway To Kanaio and beyond A true shepherd to my wild goats And if I trip unacknowledged On some old poet’s toes Because his lines are too much A part of me Not even knowing how the songs come I receive your thoughts Keeping a record of them in the silence Seeing your face so open A form of inexhaustible delight LXXXIV Do I have a third love What is happening to me Our here in your wild embrace In the fine rain The hanging mist In the flesh colored Intimate skin of earth Washed by ocean There exists between us

True boundaries Free to come and go Among the centuries Past memories Perfume my nostrils Sending the briny smell of you Fragrant and distant to Find my soul

LXXXV We follow the trail to Kanaio It’s pale today not that dark polarizing blue You’ve brought the wrong filter Feeling the wind take all your attention Its loud noise whips around your ears Blows against your face Making it hard to see the flight of birds Or recognize their form Naah Naah A baby goat calls out in the lava fields Hoping to see the herd We climb toward the sound Until we see the small goat Standing separate in the wind I sit as you take your pictures And sense the mystery of what’s arising I don’t know to what page my book is turned Or where it is to go But like the wind you take all my attention LXXXVI Standing in the heiau of lost time Overgrown with kiawe Green with thorns and tall cactus Beyond mountains of brown lava And beyond the green slopes of Haleakala Telling me how you learned To speak my language Traveling in Greece and India Speaking about books Sharing your student days with me Loving the questions for themselves

How can Kafka be translated into English What words quiver with apprehension What subtleties are lost Separated from their mother tongue And we stand before this ancient village Half its soul remaining A perfect form falling from time Worrying over dispirit cultures When nature shows an exact spot Of pale blue inside a wave So light it’s not even pale blue LXXXVII The pain men put on women How it hardens them I thought I had missed all that But this year has brought me Once more to an issue of faith I remember Bringing my sister home form India Babbling incoherent My life an embarrassment Incomprehensible to my years What force stirred inside her Blowing like a promiscuous wind Tearing her away from any anchor While I was left to persuade Russian police Stop them from imprisoning her Finally landing in Hamburg I brought her home to my parents Releasing me until I could trust again And let the tears flow LXXXVIII I felt light headed When I was talking about Australia Thinking about a past happiness My property where I planted Jacarandas and African tulips To bloom three years from now Rooms built in my imagination Additions added to a state of bliss Yet away from him I miss the big green leaves That are my soul Whose thickness is my being I feel faint and dizzy

Was he a reflection I took to be eternal Losing myself when we made love Or were shallow rivulets already Running to a faithless sea

LXXXIX What masquerades we play While we wait for the next wave Never seeing who we are While the shark In his sea cage Flashes his macabre beauty Awake to life Devouring everything In his field of vision Come to the lava ball This all souls night Join the revelers The dead ones Seeking candy or beverages Pick out a sea wall Put up a for real sign Terror incognito This is La Perouse not Lahina XC We are making plans to camp again She and I And gently she holds A mirror to my eyes So I might see my self My wild urges Pacing to and fro Wasting my power Love’s fool Lacking reason Past redemption This time it will be different No more striking lava Instead I will get it together Leaving early Providing time

Simple things like settling For the night And I will let my soul arrive Informed by your precious sight

XCI I am dying to feel that spark in me When I was born Covered now by A film of sadness Stopping my light from pouring forth How close it is to the surface Waiting for me to pull it aside To begin stomping in earnest To do my dance And I come to La Perouse Looking for whatever I left yesterday Burnt stones and embers Thoughts scattered by the wind Lifting my eyes to watch The silent sea XCII Frankei Angel Perez and Ruben Keith Ortiz The straps that tied your surfboards Hang loosely now about your graves Buried in rocks overlooking the sea Your crosses adorned by shells Razors, turtles, stone offerings As you were offerings to the sea Sacrifices in our struggle To be spontaneous Centers spinning outward From a point in space Fracturing and vulnerable You came into the world To find yourselves Cut down short in La Perouse And when you surfed that killing wave Were your arms breaking or Did you hold on with your heart And leave with every drop of blood on fire

XCIII Today you are the blue of photographs Without overcast and shadows A dancing light upon the sea And soft greens near shore While far away Life is suffocating Barely breathing Cities fall to dust What the terror incognito doesn’t know Is that we are terrorized already And I came here to La Perouse To tear this mask Given me at birth That I might see myself And let my presence be Not for a moment But for however long And to know why an hour Resting on your translucent shore Leaves my heart more still XCIV My heart dreams in La Perouse Gray sands are my bed And white stones, my pillow My cool lips taste the night liquor Running beneath lava fields Flowing into fresh water ponds Close to the sea And I dream of Sea eagles soaring Skies streaked with stars The way it was When folks longed to go on pilgrimages Wandering on a clear night Walking in the wind Stomping on the King’s highway Wending their way toward Hanna town

XCV I am looking at the black cliffs Jutting from the shore Wondering if the canker in the fragrant rose Was to make her petals smell more sweet Or if death in life makes life more precious still Or sadness lets us know the joyful heart But when I see you Lying next to him Head to head Exchanging tender thoughts I cannot see how fear, hate, rage And pain lead anywhere Except to drag me into hell Sickened by rape and murder A senseless beast Diving into the pounding surf Knowing the bliss of endless pain XCVI Brothers Ruben and Frankie Your sad lives make me weep Standing over your youthful graves I wonder why you were spared the full journey Betrayal and bliss over before they began What are we to make of your swift passage What comfort do you leave us Was it simply that in your deaths We know you And now you lie Like boulders thrown into the sea Forming peaceful patterns Slightly off centered rows Moving westward toward Kahoolave Appearing through the bluest greens Bodies in their deathbeds Beneath the surface And I know in my being Life has provided you A tomb befitting kings

XCVII Coming here each day I came to take you for granted The day I split my nose Rushing in to see you Was offensive Pleasing only to myself Allowing too broad a circumference A rape oblivious to its prey I must have deserved that slap in the face Why would you In your boundless wisdom Put up with my disrespect How many lessons Must I learn in La Perouse Before I see the rolling hills The soft mounds in the lava fields Palms touching palms And know we are gathered here Joyously and triumphantly at sea XCVIII Kiawe branch lying white on its side Touching the water’s edge What wind ripped you Out of the ground Clumps of earth Still clinging to your roots Your function was Simply to grow and multiply But in death you are beautified By an artful mortician Using his skill wisely Preserving you for eternity Catching our eye With your sidewise branch Dipping our hands in sea water Summoning us to purify our souls

XCVIX Is it a dream When your bring the baby to me Holding him in my arms until I notice he is slimy and misshapen A foul smell matching his form One eye swollen, oozing Ready to pop I want to get rid of him When suddenly a pale green wave Comes to me Holding the baby tenderly, I look again And he’s a Siamese twin I watch him/them grow and separate One is so beautiful it takes my breath away Reaching full form I am astonished when the smaller Weaker of the two Changes, mirroring the first Becoming even more radiant And the pale green wave of my vision Becomes deep green bordered by black Luminous, translucent, Turning into small particles of light Not even starlight But light beyond all earthly gaze C So many rocks and boulders Guard this cove Loosely rolling with the tide Tell me muse, what do you want of me Why must I sing your songs I am not the keeper of the faith I do not feel it Yet, when I look out toward Kahoolave The wind blows through me And I sense how little time Is left for me on earth Oh muse, reveal your quiet voice That directs my doing So I might untangle all the branches And set the stars just so CI My young man, true son

Why do I let fall my hate Against your innocence And sense of loss That so becomes you Why do I bully you with math Who cares if your sign is plus or minus Or if your point is in the wrong place There are so many points In the wrong place today Death stalks the world Kahoolave a minefield Of detonated bombs and strewn debris And I pace frightened, yearning For a new beginning, a holy place You are so dear to me Studying the beauty of your face Brilliant and intelligent I know your presence in the world Is my second chance To find my own true measure And walk beneath the darkened sky CII Two military choppers flashing light And spilling smoke over Kahoolave Bursting into La Perouse Ignorant of man’s history Of the hundred thousand year war Oh sad world with Such deadening creatures in it Blackening our sky Screaming terror incognito To desolate lava and rocks I wonder for a second If you will even be amongst us After the dust has descended And the brown fields eat us alive

CIII Oh my sweet love, I have not abandoned you Though it may appear

My time is spent in other pleasures I have not forgotten your musty sea smell Or how your pungent odor fills the morning air Oh faithless muse awry Trivializing my talent Wanting to praise you Longing to feel myself in you again But I am tainted by hideous thoughts Corrupted by jealous rage Seeing you with your new companion Lying on a blanket locked in his embrace I burn at the sight of you Until you fling cool spray at my feet Opening my eyes And where there were once two lovers I see only the figure of Mary Bathing by your shore Playing with the child so dear to her And she lifts him to her breast Feeding him the honeyed milk CIV Brown lava rocks strewn in all directions Rivers and deep gullies made by molten earth Fields widening endlessly Monotonous grays, dull soft reds Jagged tips like obelisks point to the sky Nothing moves in your creation Nothing breathes or crawls under your rocks No relief only pieces of buried motorcycles Soda cans, broken glass One small herd of goats lives in this space The wind pushes my feet forward The rocks sound like bells below me Reality here is terror separating from itself My grief surfaces, sobs pierce the air Faces of the dead surround me God barely stands in this place Only a bleak eternity A dry scream whispering Who knows how it was meant to be

CV In my fisherman’s place Across from damaged Kahoolave

Two forms float below me Breaking my meditation Each equipped with snorkel and spear gun An orange dinghy spreads out behind them They dive and move on with empty nets When they’re gone I throw out a piece of apple Jacks, mullet, filefish, all bobbing A feeding frenzy in the blue water What did the ancient navigators Think of orange plastic Was it something to enrich their lives Help them commemorate the deeds of men Those seafaring chiefs Journeying from the center of the Pacific Hiro, Rata, Tangha, Tutapu, others Two thousand years of voyaging Ten million square miles of water Islands fixed in their minds Done in canoes Carved with stone and bone Held fast by coconut fibers Seaworthy vessels sailing twelve hundred miles From the Marquesas to the Cook Islands Exposed to blistering winds A single journey Lasting twelve thousand miles One hundred paddlers lost Forty men remaining Prognosticating weather by Halos of the moon And the stars within the halos A journey inside Knowing the way Without knowing you know A hole opening in the sky Enthralled by the moon And the throbbing of the blood

CVI Dear Jean Francois hoping this letter reaches you In some nexus where our lives have crossed I think of that morning long ago When dark gray choppy waves Battered the shore Forcing you to turn away from the Kipahulu coast Stopping their canoes from greeting you

Paddlers unable to reach your ship Swamped in your wake Spilling their hogs The men of the island curious to know your purpose The women ready to give soft welcome To your sailors Out of joy for a stranger Passion for the journey To celebrate victory in navigating the unknown And your two ships, La Boussole and L’Astrolabe, Struggle through the night Try to find shelter against the trades Leave the lush Hanna side and sail toward Kanaio What you called, a dismal coast Finally making anchorage in the squalls and soft sand You spend your morning hours Learning that these were not the same islanders Who murdered your hero Captain Cook But a mild people Coming as you did from an Age of Enlightenment You were the one sole navigator Bringing with you men of science Ardent about weather and water Under a mandate from Louis and Marie Not to kill unless forced Instead carrying organs, combs, hatchets Scissors, one million assorted pins Nine thousand fish hooks Not thinking of these people As people to be conquered You put up no flag In all you spent less than forty eight hours Before sailing away Never to return to these Hawaiian Islands But on to Japan to a straight off Hokkaido Then somewhere between New Zealand and Somoa You disappeared CVII Dear Jean Francois what was your fate Were you killed by a mob Shipwrecked by storms Was there in your moment of wonder Someone to hear your cries Clasp you to their chest Did you suffocate Feel unbearable bliss

Rock beside forms of the dead In a single grave without dominion Until the world hauled you up A hundred years later Lead ballasts and copper spikes Saying they belonged to La Boussole and L’Astrolobe Outside an island called Tikopia in the Santa Cruz And now it is time To light my torches for the long night For I must tell a tale For you, Louie and Marie Repair a mast Mend a sail In the way it might have been In the distant past Had your returned CVIII Damn, you say I have a hand full of women And I laugh that I have no one Your wide mouth smiles at me And I am swirling in confusion Grinning at my empty existence I shout, Jean-Francoise Galoup Tell me about your sex life How does it feel alone in your cabin Without anyone, do you have yourself Do you cry out like I do Wait to see what mist or rain Will drench you Throw you into an abyss Leave you thwarted Heart sinking Unable to escape a mean spirited truth CIX I take the path to the old tearoom Wanting shelter from the rain Set my pack down beneath the giant kiave White coral stones fill its branches Rest on the ground as alters And below me are two fisherman Waiting for hoipia and aluha to strike their lines Two large setter dogs sit in their truck Camp food, nets, chair and an empty ice chest The rain stays Not a very good time to set bait

One of them slides a little in the surf And behind us there are red broken walls of time Ancient villages that have crumbled Place after place vanished As real time moves sluggishly Refusing to catch fish CX Last night we lay together for the first time in La Perouse How cautious you are even in your pillow talk Feeling unprotected, unable to sleep Worrying, creating fantasies Dengue mosquitoes lurking in the lava pools Waiting for a chance to kill you Drunken fisherman with empty beer cans Waiting to rape you While I, your penless perverted poet See only your statuesque beauty Listen to you talk about how you want to get fucked Yet how satisfied you were by your last lover Who never fucked you But made love to you with a sweetness And later I told you I had a premonition That I might not be here for much longer Wondering about that thought Was I alive Like the nerve endings of a sliced eel And then you woke at three a.m. to falling rain To things moving, clouds, moon, stars, mosquitoes And me too quiet by your side Imagining yourself dragging out a dead man We had the best laugh of the night But not our last in La Perouse CXI I am voyaging now Without contact Not indifferent Darkness penetrates my essence Light shimmers in my soul And I am gliding once more Gliding with red tailed tropic birds Drawn to cooler lands What land is this What waves and currents move me Look, the bursting fountains Look, the mountains rising to the sky

Hold my canoe Hold it steady The sacred sennit Lace it in and out Tighten it to hold Let it hold, let it hold Ku and Hina Let my spirit fly ahead Onward to a fresher land CXII The boulder hangs by the sea And the pool beneath it Clouds cancel the light He leaves Friday, she says I want to feel what it is like here Without his presence Without running into him or his girlfriend Now poised on a lava rock like a heron With her pig tail and blonde braid Her camera seeing what there is to see Choosing her space carefully Is there never anything you haven’t done I would like to go to Tahiti, she says Then her dream shatters, cracks When something ends up not happening I want it to be over with already I was brought up to feel it isn’t right Not to be in a relationship Never to feel that golden love again CXIII I see you now in every rock and lava field In the herd’s departure The bird lifting into flight In the shape of your new love In my daily prayers Nothing my sweet boy is ever the same When you are gone There will be nothing new to say Yet my eternal love is love anew And when she stops me at the dance And wants to talk to me I hate her more than tongue can speak Oblivious to my hurt Why do I care if we are comfortable Wanting me to make her feel better

I rage against the blackness of her eyes Her small white breasts Her mouth a twitter Her faint heart’s history Until I get my rest CXIV When will I possess the mana of a God My spirit followed by the hungry seas Swallowed by half gods Eaten by sickness More death in life than life alive I tire of these cries and weeping Forsaken by my muse I climb weary into my eyrie My space above the sea Until my gaze meets yours Impervious to eternal life How I drink your freshness Incomparable to any words I write And when I look out on the wide world At the feathered gods above Kahoolave My animal passions My flock of reasons Are naught to the chopping of the breaks And the endless crashing of your waves

CXV What is this wind screaming inside me Bullying me Like hurricane waves Crying inside me Stay little stay small Keep it inside Do not reach inside for the smallness Bind it to the womb Tie it to the womb Why are the gods yelling In the middle of the night In the depth of the night Nightmare screams Terrified sounds Do not emerge from the beach

Stay small like the egg on shore Do not walk into the sea like the turtle You will frighten the others Do not swim in the sea like the turtle They will grow jealous If you expand like the sea’s wall You are a threat Accommodate to her tyranny Stay little stay small Keep it inside CXVI Plug your ears Stop them Close them Do not listen to the Black sea songs Lash yourself to the mast Do not suffocate in the waves Breathe deeply Feel your salt-stung wounds The storm itself The clouds drifting away in the storm And the immense beauty of the sun flashing

CXVII How does the story end You say, not with a bang but a whisper I say, quieter than a church mouse You say, quieter than that I say, if I never came here Would it make a difference You say, it would to us women I say, if the sea remains quietly the sea All will be well And I would have an upbeat ending But you are filled with turbulence and moods And quiet is just one part of you The part I lack Do I find that part Is that the ending And what about the others Wife, daughter, women I have loved Do they wait for me To find them destinies and deaths

CXVIII I am just a signpost Like a swarming of beasts A flight of terns Driftwood on your surface While you, my turbulent sea Have patterns woven into time Begun with time’s origins Guiding humankind for years And like other sailors I must learn strategies For exploring your reefs For navigating long distances If I try to conquer you I will miss the journey Loose those spaces Those moments of joy When I hear you clearer than life itself And life is neither bow nor beam nor destination But a boundless horizon Stretched across a diamond dome Rising like stars from fixed points As the night slides across the sky CXIX My sweet daughter, walking into La Perouse We come full blast into an odor on the trail I always love the smell of horse poop It smells yummy Reminds me of horseback riding I loved riding when I was young Oh my god, look in there A dead puffer fish with no teeth That’s nasty, then looking at the sea you say Did you ever notice how a wave rides in on itself Curls over, sort of glides, then breaks I think the water from the shore flows back And makes peaks in the waves A sign marks the start of the King’s highway I read her the salient part Two miles to Kanaio beach Well I’m not walking to Kanaio Why do you think I’m so spoiled, you ask Well, I say, before your mom died She gave you everything you wanted

Do you think that was wrong In some ways, but she loved you a lot Why don’t we go back now, you say Let’s walk a little more, I say To where, you say To the next ridge, I answer What do you think of three, you say Three what, I say I think a family of three is better than two With two there is always a fight for attention When my brother was born I wasn’t old enough to appreciate him But when we moved upstate I wanted you and mom to have a baby I wanted to be a mother Have a baby of my own to take care of Three’s an ideal number Very, very perfect Two is boring Why don’t we eat the crackers I know a better place, let’s go on, I say Where, you say To the next ridge, I answer CXX So we walk to the next ridge Crunching lava stones beneath our feet I love the tinkling sound, you say Can’t we eat here Don’t you want to eat on a swing, I say Not true, you say Yes, a gigantic swing and We can sit there and eat our crackers I’m tired, you say Lift your legs, I say I like to walk on the walls Not the sides, you say You mean the path, I say, why so Because it’s funner and more interesting And you have to balance on it And it’s not where everyone else walks You know, if you had a girlfriend now It would be o.k. with me It wouldn’t feel like it did with her That you didn’t love me as much That the love that was for me, went to her And as long as she wasn’t weird Weird looking or weird acting, I say

Well she was weird sometimes I let that slide, who wouldn’t be weird What if I went with your English teacher No, she has something going on with her legs So weird is an appearance Not exactly, I’m tired, you say Why don’t we go on, I say Where are we going To the next ridge, I answer Can you imagine the effort it took Two hundred years ago to build this trail They didn’t have the distractions Planes being hijacked, what to wear to school tomorrow Worrying if it will be safe to go to college on the mainland Or if my father will still be alive three years from now And we come to the next ridge To a beach below us See thick ropes suspended from a tree And between the ropes an enormous log End to end bigger than two people Swinging in the breeze CXXI Sitting on the log Holding a cracker This cheese spreads like butter, you say A camouflaged truck parked near us A local man, dark hair, rough beard Camping with three teenagers Telling the two boys with spear guns Not to go far out, worry him I ask him how he got the truck in here Drive it through the lava fields, he says The road, kinda boss We talk, I ask him How they built the King’s highway Brought in rock from the shore The whole village haul it all in, about sixty of them Some of the men fished, others hauled rock O.k. if we sit here, I say He laughs, beach is for anyone He points above me There was a branch that hung from there Before they cut it up for bonfire You could climb it and see the fish They swim in, then catch them in my net Have them for dinner with some steak

Got my hammock, got my mosquito net Give it a test Don’t want to fall down at one in the morning Rude awakening He goes back to testing his hammock We sit and spread cheese on another cracker This time I hold, you spread We are thinking the same thoughts If you die, you say I know a part of you is in La Perouse I’m not thinking so much about me afterwards But how it will happen If you die, I know you won’t do all that chemotherapy Radiation, you won’t let yourself be sick like mom We will be a part of it Know what’s going on Your right it won’t be bad, I say And you can always find me I’ll be here

CXXII It’s time to leave We get up and walk over to the man He’s spreading a tarp across the top of his truck For his daughter to sleep under Going back now, I say You walk from La Perouse, he says Yes, I say Long walk, he says You want to smoke No, catch some fish, I say Walking back you ask me What did he mean by that Did I want some weed, I suppose Maybe he was being friendly Nasty, you say Yes, I say I would be scared if you did it, you say Yeah, I would be scared if you did too, I say Why do they want to give that To sick people, you say To kill the pain, I think Did mom do that I found a joint in her desk Must have been given to her By someone who came to the house

Nasty, you say She was in a lot of pain I don’t think she smoked any of it She didn’t like pot Well, I’m happy We walked all the way, you say We’re walking faster now that The wind’s behind us, I say Do you know we hiked seven miles Woah, you say You know the next ridge thing I learned something Instead of thinking of Kanaio beach It’s making smaller goals for yourself It’s easier Just the next ridge

CXXIII And now the grief of Unexpressed thoughts Is more than I can bear Gestures never made Words buried in silence My heart has fashioned a stone To wear around my throat What use are my teeth if They get in the way of my tongue I will knock them out Show my gums to the world So it will know the unbearable pain Of living without you The empty bed reminds me of you The pillow we talked on The line you last wrote The last word you told me That morning that I lifted you Into the rocking chair And you saw the dawn In a voice so still I barely heard you Looking at who knows what You said, it’s beautiful CXXIV I am suffering the stone road

Where I drive my jeep Branches passing close overhead Sliding over torn jagged boulders Climbing up high rocks that Drop and fall away Deep down over the edge Where I have spun my wheels Until by some miracle My four wheels engage And I am awake To the clear smell of rain The road less obstructed And a few yards away A place for me To camp the night

CXXV I am the warrior in La Perouse Living in my mountain neck Impregnable to plunder Sailing west on one of my sea voyages I was captivated by the Beautiful Hina, wife of Hakalanileo, In my captain’s mind What I saw, I had to possess And so I stole you from your home So skillful was I That no one knew For the longest time Where you were Your husband was grief stricken Destitute for years The seas rolled on Until your sons Kana and Kalohe Grew up and searched for their mother They were cunning Skillful in their trickery The youngest, Kana Knowing the sorcerer’s art Used spells and incantations To discover your whereabouts To rescue you from captivity Scorning a canoe Kana strode the ocean’s depth Lengthening himself to the height of the sea In the treachery that followed

He destroyed my fortress home And I escaped down wet sea walls Looking back I see The slackening flames Burning in the dusk Fading into distant time Arriving are the dark clouds Arriving are the wild winds Whirlwinds spun over the earth Swirling down ravines and lava tubes Oh Hina, I am furious to have my revenge On you and your sons

CXXVI What howling storm prompts me Blows me with desire What wind drives me To walk the cliffs Of running rain Stalking the land With murder in my heart Have you my faithless whore My sometimes wife Drenched me in a fever Worse than death Set me on edge with Thoughts brighter than my soul So that now I exist In a world of creatures Living for terror Craving satisfaction Wanting to cram you In a blowhole Drown you In sea wine And watch hope drain slowly From your face In the same way mine did While you plead silently Your hands tremble And I rise Like a raptor Rip out your eyes

And leave the remains The pieces of you For gulls to peck at

CXXVII I am the wave uprooted from the sea Leaving me like a dazed animal To find my lair Cultivate my hatred Conjure a vision Place my mouth over the crown of your head Like an old kahuna breathe in your soul As I would breathe The fragrance of a petal Until one day by stealth I see you And your sons passing inside lava walls Taking the dark passage home I fill the space with pitch Make it dense Slash holes in the rock for rain And blood to pour through Cover myself with a stone door And wait for you to pass by Lust pounds in my throat I cry but there are no answers I crave to gorge my ancestral food To eat the blood fruits You draw close Your footsteps landing without an echo When you reach the hidden passage I cry out, whowhowhowhowho Slice the throats of Kana and Kalohe Let their blood flow Streak my body Before I turn to you and Feel the wind rushing past Let you plead your innocence Then I grunt like a wild boar Thrust into you

Oh Hina, the fire burns The sacred flames leap out before me I rip your eyeballs one by one One blue one gray The steaming fire flows from me Consumed by earth, melting into a wasteland I feel a dry season scorching the land As I drag your body from its dark hole

CXXVIII Today are the rites of the Luakini temple And I have come to make a sacred offering To feel death and rebirth Hear the drums echo A swirling storm lashes around me A rage holds me I look at your body Lying at my feet With my knife inside you I bend over Make streaks in your blood Your odor steams in my nostrils Your eyes moisten my throat My lips taste your sweet food And the gods in the sky Scream down at me Not to eat in haste CXXIX Oh Hina though it appears so I did not premeditate your death But neither was it an accident I do not remember the details I may have felt you As a god holding my structure A ritual without conscious knowing Maybe I sought to flatter you Manipulate you into a defenseless posture But I sense now Dragging your body behind me Wanting to leave your bones In the house of the dead That what I have done will be maligned In stories and chants Lost will be the old ways

Shrill winds existing only As primordial memories People’s lives a shadow Along the sea Our lands wounded And your death mistaken By the whole world

CXXX The rain leaves no tears upon the earth It pours down letting the petals remain dry I try to burn your body But it will not burn I try to take it to another place But it will not burn there either Everywhere I drag it It is the same I creep by cliffs and rocks My burden is heavy, full blown I put your blue eye in my mouth My tongue dries in my throat Scorched, parched Tribunals of half gods judge me Commit me to constant unrest To passions devoid of pleasure Rape without sweetness Murder without stillness In my dream I am surrounded By a dark shadowy tribe My openness rewarded By blood on my soul Burned by the sun Fainting on lava Waking up knowing The loss of innocence The soul without lightness La Perouse you are bubbling up Bubbling away I miss you I miss you as you once were When salt still bathed The forms of my ancestors And I fished with my pearl fishhooks Before I felt your designs

Before my life was snuffed out And my race came to its end

CXXXI Oh goddess of the half world How do you guide my soul Now that I am burned to ashes Abandoned on your shoals Never to see a porpoise Or flight of tern again Bereft of destination Let me come before your council Work it out with Ku and the others For I am Like a shimmer on the water I refract no light Not now Nor ever CXXXII The wind and your rough waves Have brought me to this new island Surrounded by sea turtles Not knowing how I arrived here Vague memories haunt me and Though my past is blank I swear from here on in I will take nothing for granted Live my life for what it is On this land of flowing lava I command you to build me a city Rising from the earth Like no city before me And I will rule here until I die In a temple of desecration Let my burial home Be a bruised earth Let malignancy suffuse me Entomb my children with me For I am beyond conversion And there is no waking from this dream Nothing in the still air But the puffer’s death And the waves inevitable foam

CXXXIII I wish my grief to end To find a wave In that dark rough sea That finally breaks on shore For I have been private too long Living with silence I remember walking high cliffs together Hiking from promontory to promontory Wild birds lifting from the grass So vivid is my memory That I can almost touch you Feel the life that springs up overnight With shouts of joy And thoughts of you That have the shape to please And I must sing about the sea What course to sail And what’s to be CXXXIV Oh faithless man romanticize the past Though we have been together for so long The memory of our first contact still haunts me How my belief about the world Has changed since then How naive I was I thought you came in your canoe From the place of the dead Looking for your wayward children How I avoided you Found your presence frightening Seeing your steel ax offerings As kapu, trying to get rid of those You had left on former voyages So you might leave me alone Thinking your children elsewhere I knew nothing of your thoughts Only your hunger for pearls and things You are seduced by the image of yourself A god of noble birth Shaping me into a dream of conquest Snaring me in your net

Scorning the reality of my world CXXXV Yet we remain together without embracing Not that every stitch of it was bad We’ve had our ceremonies Times of peacefulness But what is left for our children What world will they have to live in I see your motive is greed That’s mostly true You belong to a category Of artist come to paint our pictures Things you think you hold dear The very face of me But inside you are weary of my kiss Cynical with power Judging what you see Naming it my ignorance My violence My thievery My fondness for human flesh And human sacrifice For you have simply come to trade And to have me submit And when you see me clearly You feel threatened You burn and massacre in retribution Cut my arms and shoulders to the bone Appearing to be the conqueror You are the victim of lost hope And you have taken what I offered Without second thoughts My femaleness, my femininity Taken me hostage Watch me cut my head with shark’s teeth Taken my act to be a farce And in return you gave me goods Iron for a free market That I turned against you Used for daggers to cut you down Let you die Litter on the beach at Kealakekua Mainly a tale of blindness No difference now

CXXXVI Were you not as Melville saw you A junta of ignorant restless haoles Self ordained ministers of civilization Secretly wanting to keep us locals As we were What else would you have to sell This was your conflict Until we took your ways Acted more like you than you yourselves Our last rebellious king King Kauikeaouli Losing his sovereign powers To Kaahumanu, his foster mother And the various pious alii Who ruled in haole fashion Cutting down the old regime Claiming royal lands and privileges I watched as your pawns Stripped him of his rule Put down his revolts Calling them a commotion A return to darkness He and his young birdfeathers Fighting for the ritual of the Makahiki Like Lono he was defeated Like Lono he was banished Loosing his spirit In a moment of weakness His desire was to fertilize our land To keep alive the dangerous games The long run and its meanings Celebrating the earth Instead they took away his lands Won by his father, Kamehameha Abbreviated his wicked feast Sent him to Lahaina to live in exile Separated from his support He had no passion for the storm A sovereign who had lost his presence Civilized into a sober man Our people transformed Our kingship dead Our land alien to things Hawaiian

CXXXVII Well that is sorrow and story Our land torn from its rituals A reality still unfolding A mourning for the death of kings Here in La Perouse the old life still exists Ancestral voices still speaking The ancient language The sacred sports still in fashion The beginning of the wet season The rising of the Pleiades Thunder increasing Black clouds gathering Lono returning in the form of rain Starting his pilgrimage around the land The priest making his prophecy Saying this year will be good If there is unity between heaven and earth Between the bird’s plumage and the fern And in the day’s progress Lonomakua Is born, grows and becomes a man He eats the coconut Wears the loincloth Moves about the land The mob follows him The king accompanies eating sacrifices First fruit belongs to the king Then he leaves the field To escape danger Hide from our wrath As we revel in our orgies Feel our bodies curve round each other In god’s fecundating work We are purified by laughter By the sun waking The seed in the ground The long stem breaking forth By abandoning ourselves To love and fellowship We destroy the old order And wait for the fruit of the gods To fall out of the sky

CXXXVIII Walking the kings highway

Knowing the names of ancestors The six hundred years and Twenty four generations Shaping the land Knowing the white finned shark The koa’e bird taking flight The aku’s leap The kapu of chiefs The rights of all things Knowing the names of all things Flying and running I have my sovereignty And walk with confidence Ride my canoe through crashing waves Spray and surf Stand before those who Bar my entrance to the land Dodge their envious spears Catch them Throw them back as a true warrior Entering the home of my people Bathing in the salt water Knowing freedom Calling this land my own CXXXIX Now that the Makahiki is over Our sociability at a high It’s time for work and sacrifice And I am depending on the priest To tell me whether to restore The Luakini temple or build a new one In former times construction Involved thousands of workers Feeding and organization Measuring influence and ability Showing support for the king Stones tower and temple Were the ways to lead men To serve gods and consecrate the feast CXL I have unified the land And the people of the land And now is the time to celebrate The transformation rites

The priests have decided that this year We will build a new temple The undertaking is enormous And I must act wisely Not to provoke the people By an unjust act To take my life The intricacies of the temple Will test all my skills Let me build the heiau of female desires The sanctum sanctorum, the pyramid The drum house, the sacrificial altar Build the image of the gods The god of the trees, the god of Wide expanse, supreme one Knees bent, bodies massive Ready to go to war or Rule in peace Let me weave the wicker image Of the feather gods Make the eyes of the sighted gods The gods of the stars Gifted with vision and intelligence Knowing the profound depth of the universe As man’s eyes grasp the divine Man and god transformed I am the fisherman of men The conqueror at the edges Of darkness who Must bind this land together Make the supreme sacrifice Make the human sacrifice Be the shark devouring all Be all forms of our race The incarnation of the gods and Let myself be guided by the priests In the long vigil of eight nights, marking The rights of passage in the Luakini temple

CXLI The eight rights of passage A severe test of my mana My sacrificial strength Inaugurating my divinity

I must separate from the ordinary world Purify myself Move toward Existence itself Voyaging in the boundless dimensions As a true man and the god king I have the divine right The expressed permission The ultimate latitude To scoop out and Eat the eyes of victims Devour the eyes of fish or men Offering them to the Ku goods I assuage our guilt Represent all warlike forms All conquering I am the primordial beast Seen walking in the land Naked, with dangling penis Violating the rules of our tribe My hand streaked with black A black ring around my eye Eating and sleeping with women Impulsively Without thought The crowd sitting in row Chanting Uttering prayer While I prowl indiscriminately Piercing the eyes of the spectators I am divinity without restraint The transformation of the gods Who takes the first fruits Who must be appeased If the land is to be free

CXLII How do we shape reality What role do we ascribe To the play of the senses In the rights of the Luakini temple Our openings become Diamond facets Of opposite and Complimentary light

The silence of death The noise of life The erect phallus And supine vulva Sin and purification These are the ways We transform All aspects of music Forms of speech Degrees of color The decorative flowers and ferns The delightful odor of the hala The perfuming world Of essences Imaginary gardens Croaking with real toads We worship through our senses Transforming ourselves From individual desires To a tribal consciousness And I must conquer all Bind the ambition That drives us apart Play my role In a ritual meant to purify Tame my arrogant passions My murderous hatred My blind desires Transform my wild force Into the image of Kahoali’i The violent god That becomes the ideal The invincible cloak Guarding the world Divinity itself CXLIII It begins with the cutting Of the strong wood The tree we call the Haku’ohi’a The red tree entwined by vines Alive with crimson and scarlet flowers Attracting the red birds Standing in the mountains Like the furious warrior The divine tree cut down by adzes Fashioned into the image of our god

Kahali’i and through him Ku The tree transforming into the god Coming in contact with our life Our rites and rituals Now in our temple Even as a log he is closer to us Encouraging us to bloody battles Enemies we must conquer To solidify us Bring us together in this impure world Penetrating the land Corpses strewn about my feet A cruel and bloody warrior Whom men shrink from Who does this land belong to Says the high priest And we answer To Ku belongs the high sacrifice To Kahoali’i and through him to Ku We carve the image of a god He must be transformed A fearful night spent While death roams the land There is no turning left or right An oppressive silence No sound of burning fire No pig squealing No barking dog Everyone holds his breath For fear of being dragged from his house To become the sacrifice To be transformed

CXLIV To transform the god I must tame him As I must tame myself His mana flows through to me So I may defeat my foes The priest makes an offering To let me live Continue my conquest of the land The drums roll Ku is evoked All in rebellion are cursed

And I must enter The dark side of the mountain The dark layer of the sea The rites are nearly concluded The great sacrifice Separated now from the human world Is laid upon the alter An incision made in his penis Before I decapitate him Pluck out his eyes The only ones remaining now Are the priests But even they have retired into the shadows I am left in absolute silence Looking at the real faces of the gods Hearing the sounds of their truth As the words pass through me So that I may speak With a clear authority For our lives are based on these words Evoking a transcendental reality Made lucid through me I am the divine king Aware that our entire society Depends on my alignment with the gods Knowing that I may go forward Meet the world as it is That my actions consecrate this temple And this temple is my rock

CXLV What priests are left today To exorcise our ills I called a psychic, you say Made an appointment that I’m wondering about now It’s very dangerous, I think What they tell you about people Big meanings they have in your life One told me once that I would Color photos professionally I think it’s a way for me Not to trust my own experience And then you add, I’m scared of heights Would you like to walk the cliffs, I say We could go slowly, I have bad shoes

When I look down, you say I feel the fall Imagine the possibility I wonder where this comes from Climbing along the heads of the cliff Somewhere we take a wrong path We’re in the thick of it, you say How is it for your shoes Fine, I say Coming to a halt, you say Now we have three pathways Take the white one, I say We come out at the fishing spot My mountain neck Crabs scuttling away on the cliffs below us I would like to do a shot here, you say Of fish in clear water It’s very deep here You know, my teenage years I had a value about myself A sense of rightness in what I did I hadn’t engaged in the external world I hadn’t had a relationship in my life Didn’t know anything about men or women The concept of should or shouldn’t Only the feeling I had a calling Was on the right path No doubts, just accepting how life fits

CXLVI Broken bottles, glass, litter of all kinds How they trash this spot, you say It’s a practicality for them Just fishing Sitting on the edge of the cliff Watching a school of jacks You ask if the darkness In the water below Is the shadow of the cliff Look so many yellow fish, you say It’s amazing to see how they float And I wonder how would it appear If we could see the truth The way it really is Without the dullness of vision

With the god’s grace With all the radiance Awakening to fish floating In streams of sliding light Awakening in a golden birth I’m morphing, you say I feel that my life is morphing I’m in this shapeless state A little bit ugly or gory In India on m,g, road There was a deformed hag Sitting by the side of the road Called elephant women Her face was hanging down Your hands press against The sides of your face to show me The right pressing up The left, down I watch you thinking about who you are The sunlight hiding for a moment The water getting darker It’s so clear, you say It’s perfect

CXLVII My soul attracted to yours and yours to mine I would have fallen in love without reflection Taken by your gray green eyes Never looking beneath the surface Nor letting love go where it please Now I am content for what we have Not hurting though we might with ease But gently making most of time Moment to moment arising A jack darting beneath a coral reef A porpoise breaking from the sea God plays with his vast ocean Without concern for human agony Or human kind to act as bait CXLVIII Tonight is the night of the Makahini

The earth rolling east in its inevitable path Moving precisely between sun and Pleiades My small son sleeps in a Japanese restaurant Tired by a seven mile hike and a Harry Potter movie Waiting to be taken home I see you bent over tide pools Filling your bottle with hermit crabs and seaweed Your loving fingers poking delicately Seeing the life within each shell Check out this one, pops Excited, showing me a tiny sized crab With a shell to big for it’s body A Chinese farmer under a coolie hat Protecting himself from the hot sun We sit on tide rocks watching its movements Barely perceptible in the shoals Oh my god, look at all those Look at how many I can get from here Do you think it’s hard for the small ones to walk Why, I say Cause they’re so small and have such tiny legs Now I see you lifting a hermit crab Its cone shaped shell stripped in reds and oranges Sweet, she picked this huge shell Why, I ask To have babies, you say CXLIX I wonder how it feels To be the youngest and smallest In a family of achievers Each one larger than life To walk on the king’s highway Listening to me tell you Stories of human sacrifice Rites of the Luakini How it was in Khamahamaha’s time And in his son’s Kauikea ouli Telling you to be strong That new ways need new strengths You ask me why Kauikeaouli let himself be robbed of his lands Lost his courage His ability to stand for his rights To fight for his people Transformed from a great warrior To a pious Christian It’s hard for someone twelve

To recognize a world order passing A time so different from his father’s Different as night and day Knowing that what you learned growing up Will make sense only in a small way At now at twelve, you need to set aside childhood Take on an academic gown A competitive life in subjects and sports No one has prepared you Not to fear mistakes Only yesterday you glided down half pipes Dreaming of skateboards Now you must hold tight Feel the gravity of science Learn for a new time Your world already sprung tight Consumed by terrors Deep chasms of hate Walking now, you drop your Water bottle for the forth time Why, I ask you I’m afraid, you say CL Eating hummus and crackers on Kanaio beach Wondering why we didn’t bring an apple We discuss the vicissitudes of old age You start of with a deceptive question What does it feel like to be thirty I talk easily about the past When it was cool not to trust anyone over thirty It’s a walk in the park And what about forty Oh yes, the mid life crises There’s still a wide margin of safety here And fifty, what’s that about Suddenly I’m trapped in death and illness And what of sixty How can I tell you what it’s like To feel my soul grouping in the dark And then, you say When you decided to have me Did you think you’d be seventy When I was a sophomore in high school What’s that like for you, I ask Weird, I don’t like to talk about it I’m sorry, I say

Not giving any reasons Knowing I would just be making them up We’re just stuck with what we have, I say O.k. pops, you say I should have held the water bottle tighter I’m amazed by your answer By how fast you work things out Just then a man with spear and fins Swims into the empty bay Dragging a net of lobsters We sit near him watching him use his spear To show us how hard the lobsters bite How tenaciously they grip How one will claw and kill the other If they are in the same bag How did you get here, he asks Walked, I say It’s a long way back, he says And in the intensity of the moment Looking at the lobsters I see your presence, how clear you are CLI Walking back on the King’s highway That story you told me, you say About human sacrifice The night when no pigs squeal And no dogs bark When the priests Walk through the village Do they really kill someone For making a noise It was a cruel world, I say Forbidden things were punished by death What if they were silent all night, you say Did they wait for the next night No, if there was no noise at all It was a good omen and the sacrifice Would come about some other way The king had to have a victim Ku required a human sacrifice The king must die to be reborn It’s an awesome idea filled with mystery, I say When I die I want to b reborn also Scatter my ashes here It’s a good place for a new beginning Do you really want to be burned, you say

Sure who wants to be eaten by worms How come you didn’t burn mom She didn’t want that, I say After she died I felt her presence Telling me what to do, where to bury her If you were young, you say Would you surf now Sure, but the thing about age is that You’re too old for For most of what you’d like to do But other possibilities exist Oh my god, look at the walls, you say I see how stoked you are Seeing the symmetry The perfect placement of stones in parallel lines Like trees planted along the Apian way Running from one ridge to the next And into the horizon Where past and present cease

CLII So I have let loose Those poor identities That kept me Clapped in obscurity And it is time to show myself Watch the old fires burn out slowly See the world spread its evening light I am not here Like other fisherman My fishhooks are empty My long poles have no Chunks of squid Baited on the line I have came only To hear your quiet voice Find my passion Return home To humpbacked whales Billowing swells To what I loved When I was young A little love god lying in my sleep

I hear your voice now Awakening to things external To black lava mountain flows Pools burnished in the Flames of day Awakening to thoughts To poems I have loved Wanting only To marry well in the next life And I hear your sweet voice saying Love’s fire heats water Water cools not love

CLIII Awake now on the King’s highway To darkness brushing the earth To the high pitched hollow ringing Of the lava bells To purple light falling On a million stones To rocks breathing Moving now from a hazy path To a more precise highway A mountain goat Stepping on the trail More surely A gliding motion in my stride Seeing the beautiful kiawe The buzzing gnats Huge boulders peripheral to my vision Knowing the way I came And where I came from And keeping a direction Heading due west From dry scorched lands To cascading rivers Leaving the mountains Into a lush land CLIIII

Below me my soul unfolds like milky glass Wave after wave forming and reforming An infinite kaleidoscope of ornamental shapes Huge white boulders gathered in the sea Sea creatures feeding on the reefs Shadows breaking on the water Wind stirring the ocean’s surface While in the depths an undiscovered reef Each still life a teeming secret Each gaze unable to separate One moment from the next A perfect unceasing being Whose very end, begins again