Arrested in writing
words to describe flames.
A child’s home in Pahoa
starts with a spark
only to succumb to lava fields by dark.
The dry hissing slow progress
of wounds re-opened,
blood readies along the edges
biblical in the silent hedges
of night’s crackling amber
that flares up than cools
like the hardened remains of coals,
who knew it could hold in the heat for so long?
Backtracking over memory’s seared steps,
you get perilously close
to the word that describes it best.
So close you can sense
the full breadth of the fire,
through autohypnosis
it is harnessed by the writer,
like a waking dream
a half state
it baits a tiny voice behind the mind
to mime words
from the lips of its author submerged.
Here, fragments of unfinished poems,
swamp alder and charred wood
become the bones of a story
bivouac on the periphery
of urban legends that transcend time,
haunting the sense of place,
transfixed on dark roads
behind the village unconscious,
there appears an apparition,
a white lady
who on the island is a manifestation
of the goddess Pele.
The flash of a lighter
brightens the tragedy,
recalling what happened here
from the lips of last whisper
you hear of someone’s daughter
made to swallow fire.
Sinuous details
of cold cases never closed
make themselves known at the crossroads.
There’s a crack in the asphalt
a fork in the path
for the curious to collect light.
There’s a black patch on the contours
for a spark of insight.
A subtle word darts honeycombed
between clouds coalesced by tissue flames,
enlightening for a moment,
you can almost grasp it
though it never remains.
yakskinpocketnotes 