Questions I Would Ask

To the two Cane Toads, hopping through the greenhouse
One dark and rainy Hawaiian night:
How long do you need to exist as an unwitting invader,
Until you belong?
Are you a team, hunting the recesses of your own
Private Serengeti?
Do you get high licking your lips?

To the Dragonfly caught in a web high above, then dried
And mummified that tumbled to the floor:
Did you know the beauty of the lacework of your wings?
What is a life like, being half aquatic and half aerial?
Were you done when the web snared you, were you done living?

To the Orb weaving spider, whose web I knocked down:
Do you know that I know what that web really meant to you,
And that I am sorry?
Did you see that your fly shuttle weavings catches the morning magic hour of light
Sometimes shimmering with strands bejeweled, sometimes glowing luminescent,
Billowing in the onshore breeze?
And that I don’t like flies as much as you?

And how is it with you today, if could we chat
Toad, dragonfly and spider?
How is it with you…

I Have Sun

   I have sun
It seeks me as the day begins
And clarifies the night within
   I have water
And there is a cool stream nearby
That runs although it now is dry
   I have food
That gives me pleasure, fire and form
And strength to weather every storm
   I have friends
Who kindly share and do inspire
Another kind of form and fire
   I have night
That offers up its dark retreat
And so for now I am complete.

Son on the Slope

I am your son on the slope
And I am here to learn
From you father Kea
Of your cold night winds
Of your strong heat held dark
And of your old ways rumbling and stretching towards
The night sky
Filled with stars burning with the ancient light
That offers little cheer but great hope.
I am your son on the slope
And gravity calls me to you
Mother sea calm and pacific
Reaching farther than I can imagine,
You measure out storm and cloud
And most wanted portions of the sun
Newborn in the darkness
Loving us all in that way,
Whale and woman
Marlin and man
Rounding the ever changing corner
Filling our hearts with one more day.

A Clear Prejuduce

It was just a moment
A flash of movement
And glancing down the waiting room sofa
Paisley and vacant
I saw the female figures, one upright and still
One seated and slumped slightly in
The wheelchair.
It was then I detected
And soon self-corrected
A slight revulsion
A clear prejudice
And in an instance more
I reprocessed rethought and
Reoriented my attitude
Perhaps for better or at least more appropriately
To one of acceptance, or condolence
Or pity…
And then finally
Dropping my reading glasses down my nose
I saw the infant, the child, the joy
And knew the story more clearly,
Yet questioned mine more completely:
Why be repulsed, by prejudice?
Why rejoice due to circumstance?
Why?

Each Moment a Truth

Here I am,
A certain curiosity,
Energy finding a way
To manifest matter
Simultaneously organizing and abandoning
What seems for the moment truth
A fleeting illusion of certainty
Of fly and leaf
Spider and star
Of human hand which can
Take a try at guiding and cajoling
The process
Perhaps it is art, or life
Or the art of life.
And then you see it and wonder
From your own vested manifestation
How
Or why
Or just maybe?

Hawaiian Bonfire

No water could slake this fire
And Pele was pleased.
The cone of wood once green
With life
Now sun dried
Waited for release
And provoked with a match
Exploded into a vortex of flame
Heat spawning heat
Accelerating, purging
Into twisting pillars of light lapping
Into the night
Belching
Sparks and embers
Coursing skyward
Such earthly stars bound to find their ways home
Recapitulating the moment
Of our birth.