A must-see for tourists,
this tree spreading its long arms,
aerial roots and leafy canopy
canopy over a half-acre,

it grew from an 8-foot sprout
planted behind the courthouse
in 1873 to honor Protestant
missionaries, who landed
in this whaling village
a half century earlier.

One hundred plus years
after it was set into the lava-
baked earth, standing on
the boat from Lanai entering
Lahaina harbor, I’d study that
tree’s crown before other
passengers and I transitioned
from sea to land, admiring its
spread, its sheltering spirit,
tended with aloha for
generations.

In one night set aflame,
left charred but still standing
as its town burned around it.

No one knows if it will survive,
this ancestor among the ashes,
its spirit perhaps wandering with
others like the night marchers,
looking, they say, for a way
from this world into the next.