Posts for June 2, 2021 (page 12)

He glides the air currents,
an i’o, Hawaiian Hawk,
our school’s aumakua,
skimming the contour of land
where heat rises from mountain slopes
of profundity and history,
the same slopes which once echoed battle cries,
the same slopes which once ushered 
sea-faring canoes from Samoa,
the secret priestly kahunas,
the same slopes that witnessed the birth
of King Kamehameha, the conqueror,
the same slopes that witnessed the secret burial of bones,
that witnessed the death of the first people,
the small people, the stone builders,
who gathered to trade fish, and kalo, and sweet potatoes,
the profound slopes.

Cool air sweeps up from the sea,
a vector of mauka and makai,
a surfer’s paradise.
He rides the winds of Kohala,
the ancient slopes,
Kohala Mountain,
his brown feathers glint red with sunlight.

We watch below,
the last day of public school, 2021,
teachers with pandemic masks off
gazing intently, in awe,
from the shade of afternoon
we watch his outstretched wingtips
move in timeless slow motion,
tilting and circling in blue sky
as if to say good-bye.

struggling multitudes
have lost their way
systems of governance
stand in decay

they plot and rage
against a heavenly king
never to grasp
the peace He could bring

few have the wisdom
for judgement untold
for in it is wealth
far greater than gold

I sit on my porch

Kandahar Massacre

Sixteen corpses washed clean
as dusk tumbles

to dark. Swaddled
in star-white burial sheets, the children’s

fingers make tiny
half-fists like new curls

of wood. Survivors hoist
fresh coffins, begin the mournful

trek to the edge
of the village. Now, 40 days

of prayer.  Her brothers
are wailing. The air weeps.

                After Garcia Lorca

In a wink, spring magics
Endless bouquets of  flowers
From plain brown sleeves.

Summer vibrates warmth,
Stretches luxuriously
Toward rest and freedom.

Fall crunches vivid,
Harvests pies, thanks, disguise,
Sings cool honeyed release.

Winter twinkles paradox,
Promises to wrap us in clean hush
Tied up in playful glee.

Sans melatonin capsules,
five hours is a dream.
(I see what I did there.)

Past fifty, there is
a great perturbation in nature
I’d love to wash my hands of.
 
I wander lonely as a cloud
of brain fog wisps through
my slumbery agitation,

meandering between 
the office and the tv,
thoughts of coffee yet? or no,

to give up the ghost of last night 
as my brain cries to bed to bed to bed?

What’s done cannot be undone.

To new eyes
you never looked
as if you really knew
what writing was,
even as your thin fingers
wiggled over lined paper
and even as your hands
danced over computer keys,
a player-piano in a hotel lobby,
observed from a remove,
a few coins and quarters
clunked into this tin can
as a token of some aspect
of appreciation,
so soon forgotten

A friend
at lunch today
told me
every good relationship
has a
healthy
balance of power
to it.  

I wish I had known this
years ago,
that time you
locked me
in the basement
for an
entire day,
and I did nothing
about it.

Before you awake
     I remember our fight
          Your cold silence
                My warm confusion

“momma, you can braid my hair tonight?”

i ask again as if i never taught myself to braid.

“i can buy you some more blue magic later on ”

as i scrape the last remnants from the bottom of the jar.

“you can take a break if your hands start aching.”

while i cup a dollop of grease in one palm, 

and she gathers my thoughts into a bun,

and the tylenol stay just out of reach on the linoleum floor.