Moving towards that place in the ocean
Where the moon spills almost half its light
Seatbelt tight against my left shoulder
Over the washboard road till I can’t go
Any further the cliffs of Upolu held me up
Once before here on the edge where
Dreams trade places with everyday
Walking life where now I see if the moon
Can do it I can let it go too if I’m honest
I’ll tell you fear dances a merry dance
At the roots of my hair don’t ask me

Yesterday was a good day for all sorts of reasons. Then, to top it off, my hula brother Kalani and I got up and danced at the Bamboo restaurant that evening. Mila (what an amazing man!) played Waikaloa (the lighthouse on Maui, not the Hilton north of Kailua-Kona) and we made plenty people smile. Joan, the owner, called out Hana hou! and teased the roomful of diners now it was their turn. It was so much fun.

Two men in the dying light the round table spread out
raw fish kimchee cucumber red pepper pate seeded
baguette slices one sips Malbec the other beer brewed
down the road when they can’t see they begin feeling
amidst the small plates fingertips brush against wasabi
and shoyu looking for the opener till they pick up the table
and everything on it move into the moonlight the single
life waxes one it’s simple uncluttered and anyway could
I live with anyone could anyone live with me by the time
the cats laid out at some distance on the stones become
mere shadows

Second breakfast after listening to the breakers
between my ears even the long silence of the temple
bell vibrated with distant waves shorelines for a few
minutes anyway I stopped naming places I remember
the eggs arrive and I make the cuts with my bamboo
knife and fork that banana I ate earlier with my espresso
itself a distant sound now against my palate I got
lightheaded in the hour leading up to this moment
pushing the yolk across the plate with the edge
of my toast I marvel again how chickens capture
sunlight in white and ovoid even the road at my back

They say day breaks but it’s night
that’s broken open its deep dark
cover thrown off for this turning

I stand knees bent testing the distance
to the solid core I’m shaking my head
what a miracle if this is what reality

is like behind the waterfall of getting
and spending then bring it on I embrace
this fecundity this being this turning

Tonight standing under the canoe purchased
from a resort did it ever touch water this
ceremonial waʻa long enough for ten people
to sit inside I came for the music a wild
skillful pianist who plays boogie Rachmaninov
a cool sax player in shades Ricardo on guitar
lead wearing a porkpie hat and a drummer
well the subtleties and innuendoes were flying
and many were nodding their heads keeping
time I don’t know what made me look up

This bright morning breaks into sundogs flying
across bedroom walls window light fallen flat
on a carpet of sheep hair tied into Buddha curls
showing faceless shadow puppets made by leaves
dancing outside big as hands with the sun in their palms
I sit silently in the corner chair remembering the hollow
hour of two when I awoke clear-eyed in the absence
of all this light disconcerted by another dream

Not everyone could see the problem beneath his smile
Caught in the throat a small stone an ossification
Secretions of notions he couldn’t swallow whole
Phrases in lost languages of the heart the gut
Stuck sentiments he couldn’t cough up hardening
Layer by layer where resistance hadn’t earned its name
In his litany of hours so he was surprised when the surgeon
Her long black dress open at the knee dancing

Three nights of Perseid showers came and went
their lights flirting with the atmosphere so well
I missed them entirely either sleeping through
those first darker hours or squinting into moonlight
that spilled and stained cloud cover so I threw
off my own bed cover before dawn Sunday
and silently assembled more than I needed
in the car and headed down to the shore at Kapa’a
arriving in the fast growing light of our island

This distance between us is growing
This first day of August clearly saying
Here I am look around just let yesterday
Try pushing past with its just one more
Thought let balance find its way all over
Again and again and a single spider
Suspends herself between arica palm
Legs and purple leaf vitex spray beneath
That strand of silk Haleakala smiles

Last night the usual confusion around Hawaiian pronunciation and meaning
When the singer Mila sat across from us after his set quickly pinching tears
Away from his eyes while he explained his take on Queen Kapi’olani’s poem
Ka Ipo Lei Manu written for her husband David Kalakaua in the late 19th century
When the king was in San Francisco when the queen’s love poem became
A song of mourning it was not the iwa bird the black streamlined
Thief we call the frigate bird the one who glides in ahead of the storms nor
Was it iwi the bones the bones we felt chilled earlier when Mila sang falsetto

The day the white-eyes come the little mejiro
Hop-flick their way branch to branch outside
Windows intent on bug catching with their needle
Beaks they sing on oblivious to my gaze
My wide-eyed hunger for moments like this
When beauty stands still and vibration holds
Its breath I’m holding mine too as I study first-
Hand distinct plumage and perfect Sumi-e

A heavy rain dunk the biscotti bite
through the next thought and the next
Tahitian ginger blossoms strewn
under their bush-become-tree reaching
over the quartzite jigsaw we named lanai
I find myself counting the white petals
eight all told in each there’s a number
shaken loose by the downpour but this
isn’t about one overdue gardening project
everywhere I look’s the same if ever there
was a sense of control it’s been shaken

My mother likes to say she used to walk to the end
of Fury looks you in the eye as if you’re intimately
familiar with this street as if her passion and will
can be measured by common coordinates she who
cannot put her finger on the common world of Other
certainly not easily theirs is a distant country with customs
and peculiarities she navigates with good manners

I have a feeling of love can I live on that
maybe that’s why I’m jumpy rushing outside
to meet the earthquake turns out to be
an 18 wheeler on the mountain road no
a military helicopter no it’s the wind thundering
over the soundbox of this house guess I’ll turn
around go back to the pan add some garlic
to the eggs limit myself to one shot espresso

A hand took the light last Friday I’m still reeling
Here’s the floor here’s the bottom to this darkness
I’m on my knees but I don’t know if I’m praying
Or looking for a way out such a light that word
Lost whispers in my ears and it’s true that’s how
It feels when everything’s loose in the world
Where’s the hope when such a shock takes our
Breath away it’s dark all right he was the sun
Rising on our dark differences I was living