Güd wrtr

For nearly a week
LOVE stood on our beach
(the one we feel closest to),

and every morning I’d walk
out there and say, “Hi, LOVE!”
Often I’d see people pose

next to LOVE and point
their phones at themselves.
I offered to take photos

of more than a few couples
and one family of four who
happily took me up on it—

“We never have pictures of
all of us!” the mom said—
And I felt tingly, doing

my bit for LOVE, imagining
for a moment that the world
was built on tenderness,

not peopled entirely by
the stingy and the mean,
many of us on this little

stretch of sand delighting
in one man named Dennis
and his driftwood artistry.

On our last evening on
island, my love and I
walked to our beach to find

that LOVE had vanished,
been dismantled—poof!—
its parts strewn in the sand.

And to my surprise, I wept.
LOVE had survived six days
of high tides and rain.

Who would do such a thing?
And he who loves me
walked down the beach

ahead of me as I lingered
and tears fell and clouds
gathered minutes before rain.

“Look,” said the one who loves
me, pointing to the sand
where someone had traced

a heart with a steady finger.
And nearby, another.
“Love’s still here,” he said,

“just in another form.”
And when the rains came,
drenching us, we stood

and looked at the mountains
that rivet the attention
of so many who, like us,

feel attached to this beach,
clouds ringing the peaks
like silvery lei.

And we waited for the sunset
as love washed us clean
before sending us on our way,

as it always does.

Babies, for starters.
Sure, people write books about
the tiny mammals, but yours didn’t
pop out with a personalized
Baby Home Repair Manual tucked
under its arm, did it? All that crying…
how do you fix that?

Hearts, because they’re all the time
getting broken—or certainly creased
and cracked—and again, no how-to
for your model, though medical folks
have some ideas about how to fix
them mechanically. That doesn’t
help our floundering, love-ravaged,
hurt-feeling’d pumping engines.

So we are left to realize how
much can’t be repaired even when
we desperately want it to be—
cruelty inflicted by the thoughtless
or the downright mean-spirited,
not to mention the anguish of
watching those heading off into
the we-don’t-know-where,
trudging toward the other side
where we on this side can’t yet go.

That we’re the ones who must stay
behind clutching all our broken bits
spins our struggling minds. Perhaps
each of us was issued a nifty instruction
booklet before we landed in these
bodies, and we’ve just mislaid it,
or put it in a safe place that
we’ve forgotten.

So, optimists that we are,
we keep hunting for the manual,
wishing someone would deliver
a new one special-overnight-hurry-up-
express, in an easy-to-open box
with very clear directions
in large print:

Begin here. Step one...

You can’t walk on the beach
on this island in the middle of
the sea without tripping over love.

Between LOVE spelled out in
driftwood on one beach and big ol’
ALOHA on another, it’s just

lovelovelove, which is, you decide,
the universe’s way of nudging you
to get the message as it strews

heart-shaped, wave-sanded pieces
of once-living sea invertebrates
at your feet. Because love really

is everywhere if you just have
eyes to perceive it. Right there,
on surf-smoothed sand,

see that big ol’ coral heart?
Pick it up, why don’t you?
Carry it with you for a time,

study its peculiarities,
its funny divots and quirky
bumps, then quietly leave it

for someone else to find.
You can walk away from love,
but baby, it’ll find you again.

You bring it with you entering
this life; it’s what you leave
behind as you depart.

Just as the waves never stop,
your essence never evaporates.
All that’s left is the love.

Life would be a mistake,
the window says,

as if I need reminding.
Apparently, I need reminding.

And standing in Ching Young
Center in Hanalei, clouds ringing

the tops of mountains behind me
like moisture-laden lei, as I read

the golden-arched words, I think
of my painterly brother-in-law,

the retired art teacher, who most
days puts pen and ink or watercolor

to paper. Or the dear friend who hosts
musicians in concert at her home

in the hills. Or the tropical garden
where my fella and I are happily

ensconced, most every tree
wrapped in orchids blooming

their fool heads off, thanks to a
devoted, green-thumbed woman.

Life in any form is no mistake—
it is the art that surrounds us

if we have eyes to see it. It is
the art in us, if we have the will

to make it, the patience to play
with it, to not insist that it be

good, just done for now. Like
this poem, a bit of sloppy

wordplay that fell out of me
onto the page and—

no accident, this—
made its way to you.

(for Dickie, with gratitude)

Because the L had fallen
when we went to the beach
this morning,

because I’d watched the artist
make LOVE a couple of days
earlier,

gathering the just-right
combination of driftwood for
one of his sculptures on sand,

because my love and I found
the downed spine of the L
and dug a new hole,

then propped up the
backbone of the word
and replaced its lower leg,

because we could,
because we have
for so many years

fostered this deep affection,
this longtime companionship,
this you-and-me togetherness,

we fixed LOVE.

(for Dennis, Kauai driftwood sculptor)

As I walk onto the sand
the day after it was created,
I don’t expect to see it still
upright, given the traffic
of the two- and four-footed—
not to mention a high tide.

But there it stands
on Tunnels Beach—
LOVE, in all its glory,
beaming at me and every
other being who can read
its driftwoody message.

Much later, in the pre-sunset
hour at Ke’e Beach, here
comes the artist, head down,
studying the sand as he
walks, collecting stubby
bits of wood, tossing them
into a loose pile.

I sit on a rock at the water’s edge,
letting waves lap into my lap,
as he considers his building
blocks, selects one and digs
a timber slanting into sand,
then angles another piece
to meet it.

And though I know what
he’s going to spell, I’m riveted,
watching the miracle of
ALOHA take shape.

This close to the water line
the fragile sculpture likely
won’t last the night. But no
matter—here comes a local
couple sauntering down
the beach.

Brah! You da aloha guy!

The sculptor grins. Shakes
hands with another local boy
and his beaming ku’uipo.

You puttin’ it out there,
the aloha. Spreadin’
it around, brah!

The artist nods as he and his
fans look toward the sun
lowering itself toward
the horizon, admire
the ALOHA.

Art may be ephemeral,
but the sentiment is eternal.

And, as the sculptor lopes off
across the sand the way he came,
we applaud even more
the generosity of one man
on the beach, doing
his bit for love.

•••

ku’uipo (koo-oo-ee-po): sweetheart, lover

Most mornings, when he can find
the right kind of driftwood,
Dennis builds two sculptures to love.

One, farther south on the point, reads
ALOHA.

Today, as I begin my walk, I see him
looking around on sand washed clean
by the night tide for something
I can’t discern. People hunt for every
manner of treasure on the beach.

But half an hour later, as I return,
I see that today he has spelled out
LOVE.

He’s having a little trouble with the vertical
piece of the L, trying to fix the wobble.
I watch him search for a different piece
of brokenness, then, with that slender stick,
dig a smaller hole in the sand. Surveying
his art with the eye of a practiced pro,
he places a thicker section horizontally
against the other, and the tall piece,
well rooted, stands firm.

I take a photo of as he finishes, ask his name,
offer to take his photo with his sculpture,
which he shyly accepts.

“I don’t have pictures of myself with them,”
Dennis says, “but sometimes I hang around
and watch other people take pictures
of themselves. They pose one at a time
or together. Sometimes they kiss.”

“Good job,” I say, and he grins, caught
in the act of public art, but not unhappy
about it.

I begin my walk down the dirt road
to our hut. Halfway there, I hear a
whirring behind me. Here comes
Dennis on his electric skateboard.

“Have a good day!” he says, whooshing by.
“You, too!” I call.

And after that, how can I not?

We awaken on a Monday to find that
the power in our little hut near the sea
has vanished. This happens, we know,
having been here many times. But,
awake early for me, I pull on my suit
and flip flops and head to the beach.

The surf is up; there will be no
swimming today. But that’s not
why I’m here.

Once I shuck the footwear and my feet
meet sand, I find myself under a sky
bisected with white fluffy clouds
as well as a swath of gray—a promise
of droplets at any moment. When they
come, as I stand ankle deep in warm
ocean, gazing toward the big mountain,
a surprise:

The sun breaks through just enough
to reveal a large honu close to shore
paddling hard, a large brown saucer
bobbing through earnest swells
that keep pushing him backward.

Up to my calves in frothing waves,
I watch this ancestor of the sea until
clouds again swallow the sun,
water morphing into murky marine
green tinged with navy.

The honu disappears.

I can’t say why my spirits rise
when I see a sea turtle’s head
periscope through waves,
how, even when he vanishes,
and I’m powerless to make him
reappear, I hold onto the notion
that he is still out there
somewhere, somewhere.

All I can do is wait, trust in
that constancy of presence,
that the spirit of the ancestors
is never far away, knowing
that, whether I’m here
to see him or not,
he will pop up again.

(for Mom and Donna from Jan on Kauai)

•••

Deep peace of the running wave to you
Deep peace of the flowing air to you
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep peace of the shining stars to you
Deep peace of the gentle night to you
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you…

—from “A Gaelic Blessing,” choral arrangement
by John Rutter, 1978

•••

Now I walk in the running wave
as it sweeps my ankles,

warm ocean embracing my calves,
as flowing air sends droplets

to dot my face, as my bare feet
sink into sand, while overhead

the universe prepares its nightly
sky show over the Pacific—

moon two days past full against
a sparkling backdrop of stars,

plus Saturn, Jupiter and Mars,
winking jewels in the dark.

All this I send across the sea,
deep peace of this place to you,

mother and sister who made me—
mahalo nui loa—

me.

•••

Words from William Sharp’s 1895 novel,
“The Dominion of Dreams: Under the Dark Star”

You can hear the Cambridge Singers perform “Deep Peace” here.

Sometimes we must sacrife
a few letters for love,

especially when we declare it
so publicly, as if, by withholding

a vowel and an oh-so-important
consonant, we have made it clear

to the world—if not our beloved—
that we have given up, renounced,

something, ideally, for them.
Or that we, in our zeal to advance

a runner to a base, relinquished
our place to someone else.

We took on the duties of another
in kindness as they have done for us.

We have no idea if we get points
for such selfless action—

or if there are points at all.
That’s not the point.

The point is to put it out there,
proudly, on a wall, if you like,

spelled as best you can,
your self sacrif(ic)e for love,

and leave it for others to
puzzle out what it means.

You know. You’ve sacrifed.
And we love you for it.