Güd wrtr

On our first Mother’s Day
without her, her son-in-law
and her grandson unbucketed
two volunteer oaks from another
back yard,

planting them in a far corner
of the yard that was hers, where
my favorite oak once leaned, arms
extended, graceful as a dancer,

whose woody lap I crawled into
with notebook and pen to
scrawl early stories and poems,
the tree holding all I had to
give it, until, a decade later,
it collapsed, unknowingly
watered to death by our father
cultivating a green carpet of lawn.

Today Kevin dug the holes
in the mound where that old trunk
once rose, and Eric tucked in
the spindly trees as lovingly
as he once blanketed his own
babies—not unlike the newest
among us sleeping in her
auntie’s arms on the patio.

And we stood there, each of us
silently whispering, Grow!
in the spot where I thought
my tree would forever stand,
where I learned that love
is always a two-way street,

even when we think it’s not,
even when we can’t imagine it
being reciprocated by something
so large, so rooted, so silent.

Maybe it’s her chair space you’re holding,
the one she sat in at the table,
or the weary recliner that held her
when you could not.

Her space in the world seems to have
vanished, as she seems to have
drifted into the ether, but now,
she is all space, in every molecule
of air, in the softest of breezes
brushing your cheeks.

Like that. As you cannot see
the wind, you cannot see her.
But you can feel her passing by,
bestowing a true air kiss.

You do not need to hold space
for her. She’s doing that for you
every place, as she always did,
whether you recognized it or not.

Listen for her on the breeze,
swirling, whispering,
Nothing left but the love,
my dear, nothing but love.

He says upon waking, looking outside
to behold the day’s first light

on morning waves, soft clouds losing
their blush as the sun takes over,

revealing a ruler-straight horizon
separating the lightest sky blue

from the sea’s definitive marine blue
morphing into near shore deep turquoise.

“Another beautiful day,” he’ll say later,
even as we’re caught in a sudden shower

on the beach, taking temporary refuge
under a dripping hau tree, as we wait

for the precipitation to pass, for our
old friend sun shooting through clouds

to dry us. In truth, they’re all beautiful days,
these extras he’s been given—ones

I gratefully share no matter the weather.
So now, when I hear this bit of cheer

in his voice, even when he’s teasing,
my heart responds with every beat,

“Even more beautiful, dearest, because
I get to share this day with you.”

She’s the Hawaiian rainbow goddess,
and when she makes an appearance,
we take notice, tipped off by

soft drops of rain freckling our faces.
Simultaneously, we turn away from
the sun to watch this messenger

of the gods unfurl her full-spectrum
message—blessings of hope and rebirth
arching across the sky.

A rainbow, it seems, is a two-way street—
for mortals, a path to the heavens,
and, for the gods, a river of light

on which they may beam down
to Earth. So we stand grinning,
entranced by this anuenue highway,

a momentary glimpse of joy
in the form of simple sunlight
striking water droplets.

That she, a vanishing vision,
comes and goes so quickly makes
us treasure her all the more.

(for Donna Just in Lawai, Kauai)

Your last day here, mid-afternoon,
we go down to the flat lava rocks
at low tide, under a hiding and
seeking sun. In nearshore waves

we look for periscoping heads
rising to take a breath, inflate
the huge lungs before diving
again to nibble at limu

adorning the rocks like
sea lichen. We call out turtle
heads and flippers and tails,
and I see us as little girls,

blondes getting lighter
each day under the sun,
lake girls transported to
ocean, marveling at these

four long-lived creatures—
two smaller and two larger—
a honu quartet similar
to our own ohana.

One day we will just be two,
bringing us to stand here
on the edge of the earth,
looking to the sanctuary

of waves to find them—
the ancestors rising, breathing,
diving as they have, as they will,
forever.

(McBryde National Botanical Tropical Garden, Kauai)

I ulu no ka lala I ke kumu.
(Without our ancestors, we would not be here.)

And so here we are
in the great garden where everything
is encouraged to grow.

We, too, have grown where we were planted,
venturing into the greater world to take in
other species, trees with fruit that is new to us
but is ancient to this land.

None of us would be here if the ancestors
had not thought to plant us in fertile soil,
tend us as baby shoots, nurture us into
what we are today.

Once again, we thank the trunks from
which we came—mahalo nui loa—
with everything we are

and look to the new shoots
coming up after us,
on which we continue
to shower our everlasting love.

(on the path to Makua Beach, Kauai)

Of course, others might find them.
I cannot be the only one captivated

by the appearance of heart-shaped
coral embedded in soft sand.

I love happening upon them, and
yes, I pocket some. But what I

have not seen are the hearts left
by others tucked into stone niches

on the path to the beach. It occurs
to me that these are not the hearts

of the ones who find them and
wedge them here—starkest white

against earthy black lava blocks
stacked just so—but keiki tucked

into the tender care of makua,
the parents, in this birthplace

of humanity. And when strangers
walk by all that love beaming

at them, they cannot help but
turn their own soft sides toward

the sea, which receives and
shelters us all, from the newest

to the oldest, all the days of
these never-long-enough lives.

•••

(with thanks to Toni and the late C.B. Martin—
as well as Samson—for their generous hearts
in sharing their favorite beach with us)

(for Donna and Eric and Dick)

Three floors up, from the open
window of our oceanside condo,
we four watched a wedding,

our bird’s eye view rendering
us invisible to those gathering,
sitting, waiting for the ceremony

to begin. We found ourselves
captivated by the best show
on island, not least by

the shirtless man sporting
a pareo and wielding a cleaver
to whack off ends of niu,

hefty coconuts into which he’d
carve a just-big-enough puka for
a straw, handing it to a goggle-eyed

guest. We watched the kahu
blow the ku before the parade
of groomsmen and bridesmaids—

a dozen of each?—streamed in
one after the other like nearshore
waves, loud enough to smother

most of the kahu’s words uniting
bride and groom who then walked
down the grassy aisle into their

married life. We could not take
our eyes off her gauzy train
billowing in the seaside breeze,

and later the photographer
urging the newlyweds out onto
smooth lava where—we could

see this coming—the incoming
tide baptized their nuptials,
blessing her ivory gown

and his sleek black suit. What
held us at the window, sent us to
the lanai to watch the goings-on,

we whose own weddings lay
decades behind us? What urged
us to lean over the railing

above them and holler,
“Congratulations!” which made
them look up and wave?

Too simple to call it nostalgia or
envy those who’ve only just begun,
the long-ago song rattling through

our collective memory. Perhaps
it was because we became inadvertent
witnesses to a sweet celebration—

along with the offering of nui,
the humble coconut that Hawaiians
call the beloved tree of life—

to the sustaining power of love.

•••

Pareo: a sarong made of a single straight piece
of printed cotton cloth, worn by Polynesians.

Niu: coconut

Kahu: a pastor or minister with a spiritual commitment
to nurturing and safeguarding what is under their care.

Ku: conch shell blown at traditional Hawaiian ceremonies

Puka: hole

(Hanapepe swinging bridge, Kauai)

It vanished, this 1911 bridge,
hurricane’d right off
its supports in 1992,

rebuilt, then smashed by
a tree propelled by the storm-
swollen river in 2019.

But if you stand on it
today, the only vanishing
thing about it is the point

where all the bridge’s
parallel lines seem to
converge at a single point,

as in paintings that seem
as if you could stride into
them, as if on the other

side of the bridge wait
the unvanished, still
embodied, smiling

as you walk across,
ready to fall into their
welcoming embrace.

(Lawai, Kauai)

I come to wade in the protected pool
where waves crash on rocks just outside it,
marveling at all the forms of life—

from the ginormous monk seal parked
like an oceanic zeppelin on the bigger beach
down the road to hundreds of tiny fish
in this ocean nursery.

I stand up to my knees in leftovers of waves
that have come from afar to dash themselves
on the rocks circling this pool like a lei
before careening gently into shore.

I gawk as if I have never seen it—this cove,
these palm trees, the wall of naupaka
with its tiny white flowers behind
the haphazard collection of chunked
lava that protects this keiki pool.

I have sunk my baby toes into sand
here many times. Yet each visit reveals
a new batch of keiki fish, slender and silver,
along with miniature convict tangs wearing
their tiny vertical stripes, so small they
look like wee butterflies nipping at
submerged rocks.

But the gods of abundance are not done
with me yet. As I straighten and lenthen
my gaze, angled on a steep turquoise wave,
a large honu turtle-surfs his way through
his wild world.

And overhead, a large monarch wings by,
reminding me that she, along with all
the other ‘aumakua, are always present,
whether or not my heart’s door
is flung open, if only I am clever
enough to see them.

•••

keiki: child, offspring

‘aumakua: Hawaiian spirit guardians