For Nell Lester,
Feb. 5, 1930–Dec. 3, 2023
and for Sue Lester,
best daughter
•••
A hui hou—
until we meet again—
people say in Hawaii,
perhaps with a kiss on
the cheek
when they part—
a hui hou
at the end of a life,
as the mourning dove
lands on a tiki
named Pau Hana
(work is done),
as we say to you,
mahalo nui loa
for your many
kindnesses,
aloha oe,
one fond embrace
until we meet again.
(North shore, Kauai)
All day we circle the base
of the thousand-foot triangular
peak at the end of the road—
the gift called Makana—
as we recognize its Bali Hai silhouette
from the distance of Makua Beach,
and, later, under its majestic shadow
as our feet traverse thousand-year-old
terraced taro patches at Limahuli.
On nearby Ke’e Beach a young woman
in a black bikini presents me with
a perfect cone shell she’s found at
the shoreline, an unexpected offering
of aloha not far from the spot where,
at sunset, we tiptoe past a young
monk seal on cooling sands
curled around a log nearly its size—
as if sleeping next to a brother—
as crickets begin their lullaby,
and night nestles in, and
the great mountain stands
its forever vigil over it all.
The sky looks as if it’s trying to make up its mind
between spitting drops or tossing out a bit of weak
sunshine on the first morning of the year’s last
month. In this place it will likely do a bit of both
where the jungle meets the sea, on a small
island in a necklace of land bits that stretches
northward for more than a thousand miles,
inhabited mostly by things that fly or crawl.
But I will pull on clothes and head down
the path, leave my flipflops above the high tide
line, and let my feet sink into the comforting
cushion of billions of grains of seastuff
wave-pummeled and landed here—
this spot where land morphs into ocean
inseparable to the flying ones who
do not distinguish shore from surf,
solid from liquid, who soar over it all,
this point where everything becomes one.
(On the road circling Hanalei Bay, Kauai)
Saw a guy on the side
of the road, waxing his
stick, right out in public.
They do that here.
“Sexwax,” Dick said,
as we drove by,
sounding like the
famous surfer who
bears the same name,
though Dick has never
in his five-and-a-half
decades of traveling
to these islands set
foot on a board. Later
that day we saw some
in a shop: Mr. Zog’s
Original Sexwax,
a surfer’s favorite,
a warm water wax
with its ear-catching
name. And we thought
of that surfer on the side
of the road, likely antsy
to hit soft sand leading
to the water, patiently
cross-hatching and circling
wax atop his stick where
his feet will be, with luck,
helping his toes grip when
he drops in on his first
gnarly wave of the day
and rides it as far as it goes
with a heart-racing grin.
Then he’ll kick out,
smoothly turning back
over the top of the wave,
take a seat on his
freshly waxed board
to relish his run
before, belly down,
paddling back out
beyond the break,
ready to do it again.
(Eucalyptus deglupta)
•••
For Dick
•••
Of course, it would be rainbow
on these islands where rainbows
abound,
vertical bands of peeling bark
stripped away, down to the essence
of eucalyptus,
visible from your hospital window
after the collapse, the vanishing,
the reappearing.
We watched the tree; I watched you
to see how much in the stripping
might return,
if Humpty Dumpty could be made
whole again. And you were made
more brilliant
in the peeling away, tougher than
either of us thought possible,
yet so lovely,
standing strong, all the colors
amassed in a long lifetime
exposed,
laid bare under the hottest sun,
under the most persistent,
pelting rain.
Frankly, it makes it hard
to concentrate on the task
at hand, so to speak, sitting
on the throne, looking into
a mirror on the inside of
a pink Frigidaire roughly
the same age as me.
But I love it.
Somehow I failed to appreciate
pink as a girl, though I slept in
a pale pink bedroom and rode
a rosy two-wheeler.
The budding feminist in me
came to shun the stereotypical
pink, much as I stopped writing
poems once I got serious about
journalism.
(Who ever heard of a Real
Journalist who liked pink?)
But every time I hit the ladies’
room at Tiki Iniki on Kauai,
there it is: the doorless
Frigidaire, rusty in places
and losing its once vibrant
color.
I am fascinated by its chrome
detailing and wonder if it
always had a mirror in it,
and whose kitchen it lived in,
and who decided it would
make a whimsical decoration
in the bathroom of a tiki bar?
(Wait a minute: Clark Kent,
mild-mannered reporter
and man of steel, liked pink
and in the movie told Lois
Lane that he did, making
her blush.)
The journalist in me has a lot
of questions, but the poet,
thinking of her 1950s pink
Royal typewriter at home,
looks in the old splotched
mirror and sees her own
rosy T-shirt,
and, before leaving the loo,
pats the old gal on her
dented side and tells her
her how beautiful she is,
a treasure of her era, in
her glorious pink dotage.
Flippering into the sea,
bounced around by waves
more than I like, always
a beginner every time
I hit salt water, fogging
the mask, trying to clear
the snorkel, liquid
reminders that I am a
visitor in this world.
When I finally feel my
shoulders relax and
fin gently, no matter
how strong the surf,
my breathing evens out,
and the convict tang
darting below me
seem to linger a bit,
the shy humuhumu
not zipping away as fast.
And when a great
domed shadow appears,
flying slowly through
her realm, I hang
suspended, think,
aloha, honu,
grateful for a visitation
from this long-lived
sea goddess. Then
I don’t mind the surf
nudging my floating
tourist self landward,
where I will stumble
as I find my footing,
sink into soft sand
as the tide pulls out
and I wobble,
subject to gravity
and air, merely
human again.
•••
convict tang: a tropical surgeonfish with a creamy/silver body and black vertical stripes
humuhumunuknukuapua’a: Hawaiian triggerfish, the state fish, with a blue upper lip and a black chevron
down its sides; name checked in the song, “My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua, Hawaii.”
They really exist, especially the night
before full, raining down light
as if it’s noon,
the palm tree shadow on the lawn
so distinct the camera picks it up,
renders it faux day,
though it’s not yet 2 a.m., clouds
shrouding the moon, so it’s not
its brightest self,
but still so reflective of the sun
far below the horizon,
the faithful light
leapin’ and hoppin’
on a moonshadow,
as it so gloriously
shines.
•••
(for Deborah Meltvedt, my Cat Stevens-loving friend)
•••
at the beginning of a new day,
the sky murky with a curtain
of cloud
the color of mourning doves
cooing the morning into
being,
I can look mauka, behind me,
to the mountains, morning
misted,
hear birds peep and squawk
and chortle the day into
being.
But my eyes are always drawn
makai, to the unceasing sea
whose waves
have traveled an unfathomable
distance to froth the shore,
and to our nearest star
appearing on the far horizon,
not yet blazing, always delighted
to see it again
beginning to warm this dewy
earth on which I stand, silently
rooting for its survival,
this precious blue marble rotating
on an axis none of us can divine,
propelling you and me
and everyone we’ve ever loved,
and those before and after us,
slowly around our sun,
forever and ever,
let it be so,
amene.
The canvas of twilight sky
ripens into a supreme backdrop
for the show-offy sun
shooting searchlight beams
through clouds hovering
just above the horizon,
sending angular streaks
of bright orange the color
of fresh lava to create
an ephemeral sky show.
The photographer and I
have long called this
godlight, as if painted by
the hand of a celestial being
him/her/theirself
picking up the brush,
dabbing here and there
like the old master
he/she/they is/are,
then sitting back with
a satisfied smile as we
earthbound mortals
applaud the end-of-day
masterpiece, calling
hana hou! —
again! encore! —
as the crepuscular rays
dissolve into the
enfolding night.
Güd wrtr 