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?

Lodge Fires and Painted Asphalt

Duality.

Is it necessary

for struggle and ease

to mirror each other

to understand

that the boulevard and the river

are the same silence

broken by the next transition?

The presence of a hawk

registers on another frequency,

in the bowers of an old oak

in clock towers juxtaposed

to the winding hours

standing silent witness

to our movements below.

Through the hanging clouds that cloak this parallel,

the passing rain massaged a message

into painted asphalt.

It means nothing beyond

the soft sounds it creates

in neon fallout.

There were intervals of stoplight reds

along the blinding yellow’s edge,

verdant greens awash in

jungle scenes

where the city ends

a forest begins

to breathe again,

its lush mist

lifts curtains of

what remains uncertain.

Streaks and silhouettes

in the shades back lit

and on the larger canvass

the stars were puncture points,

sparkling eyes in the blackest

disguise over an abyss

that like an oil slick

caused them to slip from their space,

freeing a moment’s spark,

skiing the slopes of dark

with a sway and subtle shift in the flow,

it is the same momentum

beneath heaving banks and drunken boats.

There are moments of clarity

inherent in memory,

the glimmer of pebbles

beneath the spontaneity.

There is a unison to the lights

in apartments at night,

as they flicker on

one by one,

modern lodge fires

for the compartmentalized.

In vertical cities where

the glass divides the wild,

creating a void,

there is no matter only vanity,

each side spying the other.

Down below in the fallout and the forgotten,

tents spring to summer squalor,

flushed downstream, the ruin careens

with wretched pursuit and muddy water.

In the calm’s a parallel stream

to navigate the obstacles

to assist in the unknowing,

to accept what we resist in the aging.

It is the smooth

in well worn shoes of leather,

a whitened driftwood

tossed astray by storms,

in all its variation

there’s grace in surrender.

This rumination,

this duality in nature,

of what comes apart and what is binding,

the subtle gestures of the river.

Beyond the sky and the illusion of time

is an infinite ocean receiving

a mere fraction of illumination,

in its mirror our own motion

that goes on and honors the moment,

as insignificant as it may seem.

Through the Screen Wired Door

Her father was a stranded moon

a faint and far off hue

in the corner of the eye

at a low table and blue stool

set against the sky

beyond the screen wired door

that divides the world from this room.

Solitude sets the angles,

rooftops and distant birds

that primary layer of painted clouds

gracefully waving

as hands clutch the blade

of morning light descending

on the ridge of Le’ahi

as it rises in a diamond above the sea.

He was up early,

walking the rails again,

visible yet pale

as the slightest pain in the legs,

abandoned in outtakes,

in the hint of rain and asphalt,

somewhere a scent,

a self medication

lingers over the absence.

In Banjemin tiger balm eucalyptis,

I’m reminded of your presence.

With oranges and altar incense,

you’ll drift through the corridor.

In sizzling wok and summer evenings,

the past bubbles to the surface.

Brackish thoughts in the kitchen pots

bring invocations of steam

and in the waters the lucid dream

of seeing you sprinkling spices, the final touches.

There’s an ever present wind

that passes through everything.

The chaotic tail whip of the phoenix of myth

or the gentle plumeria scented breeze

that softens the city dissonance,

you knew these contrasts well.

At the base of the valley,

channeled through the gates of Moiliili,

an epicenter of energy and volatility.

Peeling back years of revolution,

like dust from the ceiling fans.

The nights offer no resolution

only the mere suggestion

of shadows in motion.

Silhouettes in jealousy, voices,

rivulets of smoke from an ashtray

drifting in eternity

through the screen wired door

and back again

to animate what remains of you,

merely dormant

dismantling time

until I no longer differentiate

between memory

and the passing of the wind.

In this physical space so long occupied,

l’lI find a continuity

in all the shades you left behind.





This Moon Was a Mirror

1.

I was seeing it through

an enlarged image of my eye.

Magnified

in an optometrist’s portal,

hanging

in the night sky

like a red lantern,

a flowering blood moon

beginning to eclipse.

This thread of lava

upon the edges of sleep,

reveals a mirror,

a thin measure of light

as from a dying star

would accentuate the spheres

on 3AM screens to be

drawn out of cloud cover,

culled from the crude understanding

of dreams, the coincidence

of two orbs,

differing only in scale,

delicately passing

in the dark that reveals

both to each other in time.

2.

Truth was a moon

that waxes and wanes,

receding like the light of certain

smoke obscured beacons,

incoherent

at times skewed like headlights

beaming into forests.

A blinding or illuminating

belief,

at times hardened, until rigid

as a charred landscape

where words offer no traction

in the forgotten fields of history.

Where bonfires

burn all evidence,

blackening the edges

of the past

and what is known.

Nothing is left visible,

no bridge over the swollen flow,

only rock fall and spinning narratives,

headline fear ad infinitum.

Everything appears in transition,

reason is the first to be cast

into volcanic shafts,

covered over by distress

beneath simmering pools

and with each layer

is pushed further under.

3.

Moons above

the dark inlets of sleep,

where beaks seize the dreams

beneath surfaces.

The sunken pebbles,

the unseen watercolors

of an embedded mystery.

Shades in the crane’s river,

given by the baby’s mother,

will float alone

in bathwater.

Serenely seeking the unknown

in a sea with no compass.

Buoyant, weightless,

void of machinery.

Words offer only gravity,

limbs, humanity

as poems branch out in the distance

like a rain tree of bird choruses.

The refrain was just another name for change,

sound passing invisible borders

like footprints on empty beaches.

Estranged swallows

will breach the deep

where the moon disappears

like a blinking eye

on the edge of the horizon

and the watchful sky.





Rebirth

In this time of rebirth,

each moment holds

the unbroken cord of illumination.

The simultaneous urge

to fasten words to transformation,

appreciating the night blooming

supple shape of each stream

destined to wander

through a thread of moonlight

that dreams commit

silken to waters

rippling beneath the sylvan leaves

and the animated wind

that heaves through the elders.

It brings the scent of passing showers

tucked into recesses of stone,

this vague and sudden flowering alone

is a dappled light

arrested suddenly,

yet in essence, is forgotten immediately

in the mind that would tarnish perfection

with the rust of future burden,

revealing nothing of the unseen

and subtly binding connection

that comes before a moment’s dissipation.

Aihualama in Darkness and Light

1.

During the day, when darkness gathers in the shade

and waits for the sun to wane

between clefted rock and fan palm shadowplay

spilling like an ink over the forest floor,

there is a filling in the cracks

the way the pen interacts

with light and dark to facilitate the change.

The light that is shapeshifting from view,

tempers the fade with a golden hue,

arresting for what seemed an eternity

in the ebb and flow of the afternoon.

 

2.

In the labyrinth of dim-lit paths and somber corners,

the myth of Kahalaopuna permeates.

From the highest reaches of thought

from ridge lines shaped into a profile,

it spreads over a solemn ramble

between the cathedral rows

of red bark and flickering candle.

The mottled rays

strewn and stained beneath the canopy,

lends an ambient glare

to the incense that hangs in the air

with a hint of Eucalyptus.

The notes of a passing stream

snaking between the variations of quiet.

Light and shadow, sound and echo,

a white-tipped thrush

brushes the dark with sudden communication

fluttering from limb to limb

until the last of its sound

gets lost in the silent film,

muffled in the dense coils of Banyans.

 

3.

When the forest is an internal state,

every step is a thought

every left lends fabric to the dream

of the self that fills the space

between darkness and the birth of words

between rockfall and the scars of collision

between the origin of mystery and the orator’s revision.

A swarth of light brings a reprieve

from the weight of time and entrenched belief.

With the rain a renewal,

as paths switchback towards a view

of a knife’s edge over the void

on which you ascend, as if on a thread,

returning to that of substance again.

 

4.

Myth, from a hidden source in the jagged cliff,

would course through grooves of rock and softened earth.

Like a lifeblood for the roots,

nourishing the pursuit of the past

in cool heights and shimmering pools.

The wind scattered patterns of leaves,

plaited wrinkles on the sylvan streams,

whispering from behind the chaos of the falls

a rhythm in ceaseless shhhhhh,

a gaze in vertical awe

where the light retreats , the waters fall

from the mossy contours, from a stoic face

that will not betray the location of burial caves

nor their processions.

By singing shell and sacred moon,

by torch and by trail,

they’ll pass through Aihualama,

through cottages of the plantation era,

even Tudor mansions

offer no obstruction,

as the past and the present is bridged

by a moment’s reconstruction

luminous in the darkness of time

is the light of memory.

Dawn Emerges

In the serenity of a mountain morning,

dawn emerges from a darkened robe.

Along the Bron- Yr- Aur borders

and ever changing folds

she tempers the coals

with the cool breath of night,

keeping hillsides from burning

and transforming everything to gold.

 

You are the marriage of opposites,

the light strands sequenced in a braid,

two faces coiling through sleep,

the sun coalesced with the shade.

In the mushroom clouds of this shifting

through the zeitgeist of these times,

you pull a blanket over the fear

that hangs in the air

as sure as the expectancy of a new day.

Your dexterous fingers turn the page,

luminous as a laser

that naturally knows the way

through misshapen clouds.

Through the Tao of sculptural precision,

you reveal the light parts,

the porcelain in night’s revision.

Bear witness to this masterclass in adapting,

the emerging image by degrees.

 

It is true that you dwell there,

though I cannot know you as my pupil.

For you taught me to listen through the distortion,

to see the crystal coursing

through every passing action.

In the crane’s graceful transitions

on the banks of the estuary,

you’re the wings of white light

ascending from the dark of the periphery.

A neck disappearing

with a feather and a ripple,

slender, underwater,

gathering in the edges

of a timeless brook

invigorating with the medicine

of soft murmurs and whispering,

breaking the noxious transmission of

virus and confusion.

 

Dawn is the calm amidst danger

that leaves its imprint everywhere.

A balm over the psychic wounds

we perceive clearer

as she pulls from her pouch a sacred mirror

smooth as an undisturbed lake.

Everything under the sky

now unmasked can dab their face.

Reborn daily, healed through creativity.

If only temporarily, this reprieve

penetrates the anticipation

without force or fist but gently disguised

in mist that asks nothing of the ridge,

all along Wa’ahila she dances.

I watch this from a distance

her entrance, these footprints,

the undisturbed parchment

where the spirit finds nourishment.

Simultaneously quick and deliberate,

she remain undefined,

opening her book of changes

with words written brightly,

then fading on subsequent pages,

always scattered by the wind

towards the horizon

as the day begins in the creases

where the night grows dim.

 

The Color that knows no Border

The essence of travel,

like a luminous thread

in the recesses of memory,

unravels again

after years of neglect,

for it has not faded.

Its radiant color knows no border

in the confines of categories

or in the dark closets

conveniently tucked away

with letters and photos from a parallel life.

 

There is wind behind the doors you would pry

the sudden brush burnt scent

of foreign fields and infinite sky.

The rush is immediate

and time is flipped on its side.

All your notes on motion scatter

like prisms of decisions,

east or west?

Best the flicker of inspiration

that always leans towards the far flung places.

 

Once that tide turned,

all that was constrained

is drawn out by the moon,

a cool depository of longing,

leading the retreat

into phases of falling.

The life left behind

each night is deconstructed

and getting further away.

The illusion of brightness

only highlights the reality of distance,

for change was continuous

and none could get too close

to whatever we were seeking.

 

The boundless wind makes haste on the ocean

initiating waves

like raised lines from the empty page

distorted by fingers

that try to tighten and contain

belief that there is form to disorder,

something to be worn of the unseen,

draped  like an ancient sweater

over the shoulders of the highway

that runs unencumbered on the periphery.

It sounds like surf next to the machinery,

a tempting break in the repetition.

So you’ll make an abrupt transition

towards the outskirts of that city

and the wilderness that runs the length of the past.

 

The parkway is traversed by twisting two lane,

stark against the season’s shift to amber,

I think it was September

when the sudden flare paints a forgotten corner

of what you’d remember,

forming the backdrop of further forays

into conscious embrace

of the unknown all around you.

The slow burning blue ridge

turning with every corner,

like the foliage,

we’ll make our way south

towards that place in the past

longing for renewal.

These cycles in the essence of travel,

infinite, immutable,

where one color ends another will begin.

Through the Dark Rooms of Renewal

What will come to be is still murky.

Where shadows drown, light surfaces.

In this developing dream, when the blackout shades are drawn,

the aperture is opened a fraction

and you slowly permeate the room

as through a lava cave.

At a loss and trapped, perhaps an unsolved disappearance,

the camera focuses on the cracks and seams in the mystery,

the lens examines the unseen, blends it with words.

You slip in another, leaf the river, bearing witness

you clasp clouds and soften the dissonance,

like the glow of early morning burning the fog away.

This hesitant unlocking, eyes no longer opaque

but clear and mirroring the skies,

like a celebration, an unveiling

from under hazy disguise.

This light is like a glittering shell in someone’s memory,

in the plucking of the seaweed’s strands,

it’s the underwater melody.

Pulling at a weight that trembles from beneath,

as on a fishing line,

you hope that more than just luminous,

it is sturdy enough to pull that image,

abstract and misshapen, to the surface.

You mold it in dark rooms

or let it slip back into the gloom,

more like a coin than an anchor in the grey,

to the darkest cormorant shade of forgetting.

Try as you may to trawl these depths,

getting caught in the psychic nets

spread over surfaces,

what’s left but to venerate and transform with purpose?

What’s caught, what’s lost in a moment’s remembrance?

If we can gain access to the hidden resources,

to a cache of images and associations

expressing themselves

through illuminated corridors and mines,

we initiate the infinite renewal,

see change as transcendence

the evolving acceptance that shines.