We're All Mad Here

I knew she was there
But it took a moment and a small commitment
To puzzle it out.
She was at the human end of a leash
Stealthy, mostly not by choice.
The fluffy creature on the dog end of the lead
Her ambassador.
Her validation.

The moment reminded me of the joke leashes
I once saw sold and paraded about at Disney.
A stiff leash held by the vacationer
Walking an invisible dog.
Here the dog was walking the invisible woman.

She first appeared to me as a disembodied smile.
Alice’s Cheshire cat.
The rest of her materialized shortly
And so we had a moment,
Real as real gets,
Of acknowledgement,
One phantom to the next.

-PS

“Goes to show you can’t judge a fish by the hook in its mouth.”

-Lewis Carroll

Pele

Some Say
She smokes like a chimney
And belches at the most inappropriate moments
Her blackened tears rain down
Mixed within showers of golden threads
Paving her pauhoehoe path
Through forest and town
Scorching and entombing
Those who were foolish enough
To stand in her way
And when aroused she fills the skies
With a voggy haze that burns the eyes
And chokes the throat…
But in her brusque way
She has gifted us (those who see and know)
With the land that yields life
The aina
And so we care and revere and respect her ways

And live malama aina.

 

 

It Finds Its Way

The madness is maddening
And it finds its way into my day
My very being
My fists clenched
My breath shortened
Where is my safe retreat?
Why can’t I close my eyes
And be transported to
Where reality is soft
A better time
A time naïve
A time of safety and comfort
Where we held each other close
By arms and hearts
And were protected?
I would bring you with me
To that place
No random terror
No fear of the stranger
No place where children knew
Of bombs and guns or
Of the terror
That explodes in all
Our hearts.
These are the things
Of a new reality
A fearful future…
Where do we go to find
The new good
The good news
The new way that
Might yet still save the day?