All that is Impermanent

The sky holds all that is impermanent

in the eye’s reflection.

Like infinite sand grains

a gaze through the

stained glass illusion

that if anything stays true

to the way we remember it,

it is in the quintessences.

If the pain of loss is

an empty beach,

the pounding surf is

soundtrack to all that is out of reach.

The tranquil intervals that

swim through the inner reef

are carried away

on waves of

galloping horses and white spray.

A distortion to the veneer

that faith makes

surface over

all that is unclear.

The sea ,the source of

both reverence and fear.

A clash of cymbals reveal

a pair of swallows

from the deepest recesses

of symbolic release.

A swoop and a figure eight

to trace memory,

to find a face in the waves

stranded like a moon

still plain in daylight.

Years later it still remains,

smooth as a shell

over the sea

symmetrical

as a drop of water,

a pule lehua landing

on the wild naupaka.

Each thread of cloud

ushers in the change.

Light and shadow,

the interplay of branches,

in the totality a sway

and the cut of a blade

that touches

but does not alter

the horizon or

the immensity of space.

The world has swallowed us

in this place of benevolent delusion.

The elements lending themselves

to the spirit’s intrusion

between moments

layered like dreams

over the creative streams

cascading like sand

into the fissures

of impermanent footprints.

Momentum in the Surrendering

If the essence of travel

is like a bottle

on the floor of a moving bus,

it can encapsulate

a momentum in the surrendering,

how every curve in the road

repositions its

temporary home.

With the imagination as a source

and destinations unknown,

there’s a pause over a glassy surface

like the reflection of pines

from a chair on an empty pier.

See them penitent in this light,

pressed against the sky

and in crystalized moments

the breaks in the clouds

 fall back into place

on glacial lakes.

There are simple rituals of control

in a fractured life,

the boiling kettle

that begets tea

in a green leafed kitchen,

Tai Chi that steeps the internal

in a laundry beneath

the backdrop of mountains.

There is something sublime in

running of hands

over ridgelines and the curves

that follow the currents

of continuous movement.

Like the trains

who by track and tunnel

deconstruct images

that huddle beneath passion, variety.

Through these windows

the inevitable takes shape

and life gives it strength

by the knowledge of the end of the line.

A momentum in the surrendering,

the landscape’s haphazard design.

From a veil of dark,

from whatever meaning

can be divined

from memory’s spark

in a field of fog,

the commingling of shades,

journals and coffee stains,

the night blending into day.

Along these borders,

dreams and swollen rivers

a life blood is

sourced from a common ancestor,

the past is only passing through.

Adapting but never arriving,

embracing but never evading

the ever-present chaos

sewn into the stitches

of a fabric unraveling.

This rite of passage,

the unfinished fragments

of letters and old poems

from a life mostly forgotten,

is shown to have its own momentum

not in the surrendering

but in seizing the moment.

The Wind at the end

There was a wind

that begins with suspicion

and by the end

turns a whole valley black .

It passes through the realm of sleep

whispering through

the grasses of a past

that couldn’t be kept underneath.

Like a subtle stirring

in the sea before

the approaching

hurricane turns

the peace and sanctity

to waves of heat

breathing deeply through the trees.

Before there was fire there was fear

and it seared itself into consciousness,

it was insatiable, inescapable.

Dry tinder cracks the hills

and exposed cinder

scratched an inferno

from the billowing smoke

blackening the skies.

It reached the fear lines

on the edges of community,

a vestige of safety

if there was only time.

This wind that sets the blaze,

that uncaged the phoenix

to fly unobstructed

torching everything in its wake.

Tongues of fire

speak through a riot of color,

exploding from under

the once coastal quiet

that becomes unnaturally vacant.

In a swarth of red dirt and anger

that grasps and spreads like a fever,

confusion reigned

and in the calamity

comes the realization that all is gone

as if wiped from memory.

We’re caught in cycles

of endless media scrutiny,

a cacophony of lies where

the opportunistic, disguised as relief,

know the future is malleable and undefined.

Once the dust settles

and the millions of eyes

now fixed on the wildfire

inevitably look away,

the pressure is applied.

2.

I’m wrested awake

as the wind grows in intensity.

The kakea of Manoa,

born out of craters,

let loose from fissures

and overflowing borders.

It runs through the chimes

making curtains into tides,

great gusts of violence

pressed against the silence

prying all sound not held in place.

The scattering of leaves joins

the vagrant scraping of pavement.

Like a deranged rainbow

that flashed across the valley,

this arc diving into the sea,

only to come back around relentlessly.

I wasn’t aware

that this shared wind between islands

carried death on its other end.

Its howling a hallmark

of the recent insomnia,

where the jarring of sirens

brought luminous reflections

to the kitchen windows

like a colorful portal

into the collective pain,

a historic pattern of

old wounds opening

a sleepless suspicion

that it will take everything in the end.

This wind is no longer

in the hands of those

who were born here,

who know the scent as

it runs through the grasses

like an incense in the sacred places.

Now there is only mourning

and burnt out endings,

everything swept into the aftermath

of questionable decisions.

Is there disaster capital

in the passage of wind that

erases everything ?

From where will come the revision?

The old banyan, deeply rooted ,

smolders in ash at its base,

yet still shows glimmers of life,

still holds tightly a community’s dreams.

In the deep reaches of its branches,

in the gentle sway

and rhythmic dances

with the trades the

leaves are no longer blackened

you imagine

once the waking nightmare ends

no longer shriveled by death

and the fate of this place

can be determined again by

those within the reach

of her familiar breath.

It is this wind

that will pick everything up again.

In the Intervals

Between childhood and aging,

travelling and settling,

I know our time here is temporary.

Though the tides

tied everything together eternally,

moments rolling in the soft distortion

of ever shifting clouds.

Wanderers, caught by candlelight

become silhouettes

in the snow mansions

of a dissolving union.

All that is transitory

the sky would express lyrically

through the windows of

these communal rooms.

The sturdy peaks pierced through

the ephemeral,

leaving stars and mana

a milky residue

that through the passing

of glittering stones

carried

hundreds of miles

would construct walls

and floating cities.

From the dark of speculation

we’re guided by coral,

shaped by the invisible.

Behind a veil of questions

we’ll ponder reflections

and the abandon staring back

offers no explanation.

Nanmadol.

What remains of the past

an effigy,

an extension of ancestors and

the energy of creation.

We’ll meet in the intervals

of bones and breaking waves,

as true nature stays

parallel

sourced from the ocean,

the largest of liminal space.

Thirsty, the sedentary receives

swells from seasonal rains.

Unstuck from routine,

boats are cast adrift

towards Argos, Phoenicia and Pohnpei,

the disappearing remnants

of another yesterday.

Gliding past the monolithic canvas

walls that do not obstruct the silence

but give rise

to the vines that

obscured entranceways

and distorted time.

The surface

of canals give passage

to the strange light of torches

toying with the senses.

Moments adrift

and winds becalmed

in a labyrinth of choices

pressing forward

through the blanks,

the sunlight through the palms

looking for openings.

As the wind picks up again,

you’ll consider the will and the breadth

to what has been left

upon this petri dish

of life and death.

It tells a story often repeated,

of benevolence and dissolution

crossing over into myth,

that realm of the unseen

and the power

to move everything,

while waiting in the intervals

as always

for it to pass somewhere

between vibration and illumination,

it will be built again.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Birth

1.

In the beginning,

born out of the emptiness

of dust and red dirt ,

Kukaniloku appears at 4AM

like an oasis

reinforced through the reverence

of royal births for centuries

the energy of extreme duress

focused and juxtaposed

to the serenity of natural forms.

Breathing in and out

of a circular grove,

the nocturnal breeze

animates the eucalyptus trees

as it always has.

Bearing witness

to what remains conduit,

initiating internally,

the way scent

is directly linked to memory .

The tingling of the fingers,

as it feels for release,

pushing hands with the silence.

The sequence of stones,

smooth and inanimate,

rise from verdant fields.

A woman’s profile,

in the latest stage of hapai,

her dark ridges swollen on the horizon

soon giving birth to the sky.

Deep within the

island’s center,

far from our gaze

comes the cries of strays

feral cats, wandering roosters

those sheltering under tent flaps

sound off and give way

as the last gasp of night

turns into day.

2.

In the recesses of

disassembled words,

from out of the rubble

where art is born

and trauma is transformed,

comes the point of release,

and the gradual changes,

no longer fully dark

but understood by degrees.

In the east

light fills in the cracks

like a paint that is applied

to father sky’s canvas,

the first rays of insight.

From the understaining

comes a vision, manifesting in

patchwork images and plucked lichen

that through the sea mist

stressed photosynthesis

changes color

on maritime gravestones.

It textures the illumination

beneath track lights and

on subterranean walls

the picture becomes clearer ;

a verdant field, a pastoral scene

as you step away.

3.

The Cape

was on the edge of

the distant past.

Absorbed in the fog,

disappearing into the landscape

of wood and bog

wandering like a coyote

past Chatham light at dawn.

Beyond the last clapboard cottage,

our eyes meet

as they did across the fire

in the earthen structure of the Wetu.

Wooden benches

facing each other

and in that space you imagine

all that came before, those

surviving in the face of nature.

There was no separation,

until one day we’re scattered

and the gatherings fewer.

Greater is the distance traveled

to celebrate birthdays and origins,

a mother a grandmother,

the sun which warms us

and from whom all have grown

to appreciate each passing moment.

Each time the light is

a deeper hue of gold

as it begins its descent through windows

until absorbed into the sea

and in our eyes

verdant fields grow darker

and this cycle replenishes endlessly

the sense of collective identity

on the edges and in the spaces

where most things

begin and end.

Bottom image is the painting entitled “Ispica 6” by Dominick Takis Sr.

acrylic oil lichen sprayfoam branch media in silicone caulking on canvas.

To view more of his art please refer to this website:

https://dominicktakis.com/

Milky Way Cove

If all light is born out of darkness

and the land returns to the sea

carving new dimensions

restructuring the boundaries

and the demarcations of time

that starve dreams of their totality.

To search for significance

in emptiness,

embracing the sun,

the unseen fires beneath

salty layers where creativity is born,

where the ancestors and their manifestations

are afloat over a sense of purpose.

Pulling islands out of nothingness,

these dark shapes

dimly aware of climbing

from the shade to another plane,

no longer steering

but yielding to the way the material mingles

with the concealed.

May the wind be guide

daybreak the first breath

to begin again,

transitioning with the tides.

Another wave of the hands and the lowering of oars.

A bend at the waist was the horizon,

the edge of the desk

permeable and stretched

over this limbo, waiting for signs,

for the stars to allign.

Drifting towards the

milky way cove in

an explosion of foam,

immutable forms

scattered in ink

disintegrating into

the awareness

of the furthest reaches of

a palpable silence.

Beneath everything

in a vast stream of consciousness,

you seek direction through undulation,

solitary passages from

a recurring dream.

Upon this craft of words

built for navigation,

you make circles in coastal fog,

piercing like beacons

these poems of the disappearing dark to light.

Each year feeling further from land,

from all the goals and plans.

The emotional resonance from

the past reveals

love and pain as two sides of the same

cloud shadow and raised coral,

seen from above

perceived through that mirror,

where is the boundary

between the light and the sea?

The immovable star?

The guide pulling me further from sleep?

Emptied of what is and isn’t necessary,

a blank sheet daily

for words and becoming complete

before night sweeps in

to begin it all again.

Songbird

What is the measure of mortality

dangling on the end of a string

that hangs in the wind

against the weight of the sky’s

great nothing?

Is it listening for the sound of a songbird

echoing

in the dark and ever so faint?

Like a streak of light,

elusive, stranded

a lock of hair

standing out to show its age

a white bird buoyant

against the expanse of mountains

no longer caged by time.

You can imagine

spirits assembled around

the sunset statues of capital,

wings illuminated,

the waning light

unfurled like a cloth

coiling through banyans,

canopied in song

rooted, acoustic

this world a vibration

descending below

the horizon

like the moon and its ritual glow

I mistook for windows

when obscured by buildings.

I went to open the curtains

of my eyes

to let the sky in

to let a songbird fly out

before vanishing into thin air.

Everything fades

like a dream into the consciously aware,

these luminaries that pass before us,

the moon, the waiting clouds

what can be measured

by the light that is left behind?

Textures, Gestures

Textures, gestures

into the time lapse

haze of morning,

the spontaneous eruptions

of clouds forming within

what appears static and glass

reflecting the easiest passage

around obstruction.

A break in the rocks ,instruction,

swift action

to balance the rigidity

of thoughts

disguised as wisdom.

Sinking somewhere

unconscious

beneath the surface,

the river stones

smooth as tear drops,

far flung and sinking

deep within an archipelago of

birds singing.

Flecks of light like candles,

shadows and their cave mouths commingling,

each motion creates words

reinforced by moonlight

even after the flames of meaning die.

Textures, gestures,

the eyes in a painting.

Faces in the falls,

rock walls,

the profiles of angels in miniature,

ascending

from cracks and fissures

like the first idle thoughts

that spread

from Le’ahi to Koko head,

lighting

the first spark defiant rim

that holds all the dark within

a cloud fabric’s

somber poem.

Underscoring the bedding,

thresholds in the wedding,

dawn and dark,

a consummation in time.

It comes to penetrate the mind’s

El Greco sky.

Bridging storm clouds

with white shrouds of calm

in the perfectly

swirling turbulence that

contrast unites

in the overtures of this day

in what endures of this night

along the edges of impermanence.

you become aware of it

only as it changes again.

The stream is dry where the past drowns

The stream is dry where the past drowns.

From the banks of the periphery

you see the evidence of drought,

sunken souls singing out

from the hollows and the bellows,

from what once bubbled and rolled

into an expanding perception.

From these narrow glimpses

and desperate attempts at control,

the waters flowed, drunk enough to know

the inner workings of letting go.

The fading lines,

there is no one place where this is told.

The valley’s scarred relief

replayed

through sensory expressions

and psychic impressions.

Stepping outside of time

to get a sense of it going by,

marking our places with

what has slipped away.

Beneath darkened leaves

dormant streams rise to a boil.

Dragging with them the bloody soil,

the dislodged once royal stronghold

falling into a mud slide of being sold.

With every year the past drowns a little more.

You’ll see the disappearing crown land,

the desperate hands

clutching the old ways

to hold off and to withstand

the flood tide of change.

Journeying out the way we came,

access diverted, mauka streams defiled,

land tied in military wire.

Under the glass of sprouting cities,

the high rises higher

until far from sight and mind,

the wai ola slips into disorder .

Without its source , the illusion of pure water

crawling over its course

becomes scraped knees on dry beds,

divorced, torn to shreds.

Knowing not which way is up or down,

we find new ways to drown.

In the annals of progress,

under monuments of ownership ,

crushed beneath metal gates

private signs and moral claims,

The crooked lines are what remains.

Upon this land the insatiable hands

have stamped their imprints.

Their words

certify the abuse,

meandering in circles of misuse,

in lies and lonely streams

that flow through

like a tightened noose

of shadow and loose stone.

As the Masters Move

There is a subtle stirring

in the joints and the bones.

Synchronized to the movements

and the simplicity of forms,

we’re a facsimile to the master’s

gently penetrating power,

their moonlight to the matter

witnessed on the surface of the sea.

In the waves, endless and consistent,

sculpting and breaking down

the hardest resistance in nature,

we’re eased into accepting what is transient.

Like cloud shadow to the grounded,

shaping and conforming to this energy,

which then dissipates.

With a trace of the hands the motions endure.

Anticipating change, the body and mind

becomes supple in time,

wound in many lessons, a serpent’s coiling,

a white crane’s patient stride

as it catches a glimmer from the river,

pulled by the ocean’s tide.

On the end of a bow everything is connected.

So in letting go, without aim,

it still finds the center

the dantian

the space without beginning

without end

where all is initiated.

Through the past and present,

in the vestiges of memory,

the wind moves among the lau hala

like a master weaver.

Shaping and speaking

through plaited leaves

of the humbling way it lays the braids,

completing the edges

only to begin again.

The moon, now a silver sliver,

seen through the trees

of shenandoah.

We’re similarly a tiny glimmer in eternity,

seeking peaks, some sense of purity.

There is always another mountain,

each appearing higher in the distance.

Our lives, shaped by the fires of curiosity,

going forward courageously.

Knowing something of kinetic energy,

the mysterious rhyme and binding entity

that pulls all this together.

There is a vague understanding through intuition

that in pursuing something just out of reach,

in descending to the deserted beach,

one journey succumbs to another’s beginning.

There, in the punctuation of snare drums,

investing in sweat, no longer beneath ceilings,

leaving all regrets before what is unlimited,

you’ll meet yourself in the shadow

of those who came before,

cloud figures on the horizon

coming into form

in which we can follow

through this permeable wrinkle in time.