(Hanalei town, north shore, Kauai)

Ten miles of repainting double yellow
lines punctuated with reflective squares
on each side will take three weeks,

so the flashing road signs indicate.
And when we see the crew
painstakingly lining the rural road

through Hanalei, we understand why.
In our freeway-filled world, huge
machines do this work in hours,

but here, it’s two hard-hatted men
operating a much simpler unit, guiding
it down the center of the road like

a horse-drawn plow, while other
hands apply chalk far ahead of them
to indicate where the lines must go.

Then another couple of workers
follow the line-makers and affix
ornaments guaranteed to glow

at night like protective fireflies
paired on either side of the fresh
yellow lines. This afternoon,

pau hana, after the road crew’s
departure, we pull off the road,
pause to admire the day’s progress,

this stretch of newly decorated
asphalt where patient, artistic
hands have been hard at work,

and where, tomorrow, they’ll
pick it up again.