The Poet in Kau'ai

One must not leave the island
to hear the waves of grief
waiting on the outside
to be healed

                    — so the rainbow rooster cries
                    like a pure slack-key guitar
to the lava people: lush black rocks
made love to by forever's new white
breakers, that honors every singular
                    with a flower
in the moment of merger

                    before receding

                    without desire,

— so the awkward palms might say,
swaying in no direction but their own.
                    The grasses stretch their arms.
Long roots hang down like earth's raw nerves
from giant empty heads above
                     in the koa, in the stone,
                     in emerald gold, blue cloud.
They seem to want a voice

from something that is lost,
                     forever outside
                     paradise,
not the red dirt river of life that takes
                     nothingness
                     from place to place;
this endless wave of beauty wants to hear ... us,
                     just as endless
                     but blessed with the curse:
                                            a sense for
                                            finality.

The sound of rain on the page
as the children are washed away.
The white hibiscus like a sniffing bee.