Of Things to Come

It was a calm season for storms
Then the night of the Lyrids came 
Fancy rains from boiling skies
Separating us from the streaking meteors
Shrieking it charged over the sea
Wet war horses foaming upon the cliffs
You could not turn away from the perturbed blackness
There upon the heaving ocean came
Intimations of morning
Shivering finger of light
It wrote out the story of what had happened
There above the storm
Thousand chrysanthemum light petals 
A boy lying out in a field in Iowa
New corn coming in and the night so still
You could hear stemlets pushing out of the ground
tiny hairs on each new leaf brushing one another
the grooming of new life
then jumping up he whooped
“That was a beaut!” 
Just for a moment he danced the story of
When he would fall in love
Milky Way across the moonless sky
another night of shooting stars
this time with laughter and a chase through the new corn

I do love it where you are

It is not that I long for your sweet muguet du bois
because it is yours 
and not mine
It is not that your Cecile Brunner rose 
smells sweeter than my lilikoi 
Both climb exquisitely draped with blooms
I will send you pictures but not the fragrance
It does not bottle well I have tried
Fronds of grasses sway more golden wild oceans bluer deeper 
when the sun is at your back
We can both look out together you there and me not there
I have my frothy summer sea
You have your snow crunch deep in December
These are images we trade like cards
Until feet whisper in soft black flats
upon certain old cobblestones
there will be swirly music in the starry night
notepad sherry pencils chapeaux
Cafe de la RueCafe de la BourseCafe de la DanseCafe de la Paix
We will string them along like recent lovers
Silk scarves billowing laughter 
floating behind us en plain air

Late in the Day

Late in the Day a large moth
Winged into the window mistaking it for an aircraft carrier
Apparently
Befuddled by the large expanse of ocean below
It settled its brownness sideways
Owl eyes staring out into the lilikoi vine
It whispered a tale of the other side
Winked and settled deeply into the woodwork
Out in the beyond two dolphins leaped
And that was all

I took two pieces of glass
And tossed them as far as they would go
Into the blue past the waiting moth
Who then taking off
Seized one glittering glass shard in her delicate legs
. . . . fell with it
.
.
.
. . . . . ... ..Out beyond where I could still see

In Search of Beatrice of the Topa Topas

Her secrets spilled out like spools of colored threads from a tipped basket

Never one to keep anything to herself

She shed ideas much as you would a coat in the summer dropping

Not just the political fashion but the very skin of her own culture

Beatrice took to the stage like a snail to leaves

Devouring her roles until the good little girl she was 

Had been painted over and over in a shellac of pentimento she was then

Ready for her Babylonian close up 

Falling in with the painters of Paris descending the staircase nude

Choosing the paintbrush that laughs she dipped into the pigment jars her

Silly mimicry came out as essence of joy and bohemian love

Life's very secrets pulled from the Mad Hatter's head wear 

Fame became Beato much as the perfume of her art

spread wafted floated like party invitations from Soho

It was because she wanted a certain something and finding none

Made her own

You see that right there is her secret

She did not capitulate or settle or give in

Ever, but painted her own path and walked down that

She declared herself 32 forever and a thief of husbands

Beatrice took herself to the first and last freedom the paper of her

Absorbing ink that writes there is no distance between 

observer and observed

Molding clay and words to form the last quarter of her century

Soul married to the mountain the only solid piece of life she could not move

Opening April

Out of the bursts of waves
Ocean cream white bubbling foam surface
Mousse thick glistening
Giving birth not to Venus on the half shell
But harsh Mauna Kea
flaunting white thighs sovereign shoulders
feet deep beneath the sea

And now down from the towering mountain
top face telescope studded as if with blemishes
Prodding heaven for truths not guessed at
Comes Poliahu of the frozen heart
Icy lips shaping fluffy masses in the very air

Masses of white drift over Kilauea
Settling misty breath between fronds of fern
elegant Jurassic golden fur adorned
Sunlight translated pulu next to be nest of apapane

Morning sunlight softly pink
hinting at Kukahau‘ula
whose time awaits

What she really wanted

Taking a white sheet of paper and pen
she made a list of all the things
that had felt really fine
in her life

Sharing extra cold white wine on a deck with the ocean
stretched out in basic blue below
with someone who laughs

The bedroom with the low futon mattress cotton bedding
a window out to bamboo and birdsong
all to herself not that she necessarily wanted to be alone
but still

It was the balance between self and others
That and a glass of wine and some green leaves
without interruption
It was not a whole lot and yet elusive
as any pot of gold

On Planting

Have you seen her in the moonlight
she kneels on the hard earth she wears
a hat as if the light of the reflected sun might
tarnish her spirit or 
wrap the mystery of pomegranates and toasted almonds
so deeply into her skin she would emerge a new
color the deep purple of eggplant 
she plants bulbs beneath the silver white platter
watching her every move from the sky
as if she was about to grow narcissus 
daffodils hyacinths lily of the valley it turns out
she is growing leap frogs
and next week she will plant water lilies
the dark earth under her trowel will melt into
a pond and the silvery moon will watch her 
now from nearer her knees.