La Perouse  II                                 7/93



at night, the Milky Way
passes like a silken scimiter
across the gem-filled sky

only here, away from the lights
does Andromeda become a galaxy
peeking from behind a mist of stars

Oh how bright she would be
if just once she showed herself
above the gauzy milt of our expanse

it is that way here also
we can't yet imagine
eden lurking in the drossy rocks

how in this kipuka of life
girdled by gritty massifs of a'a
we could cultivate the garden

the rock on the sea-washed headland
filled with colonies of grey opihi
tidepools brimming with wai wai ole

fish that bite a child's hook
eels delicately extracting
squid morsels tendered as bait

all on a sandless shore 
under clicking kiawe trees
with red ants, wasps, and centipedes



then that brilliant planet
whose aura lingered many minutes
shining as if through a humid window

why did Saturn decide to glow
for the five of us gathered
around the embers of the dying fire?

the mystery of unstudied nature
beats Agatha Christie to hell...
like the next morning's perfect waves

or the grouping of black things
just below the surface
that made me finally paddle in?


						


2



or why Piilani carved his road
so straight across the pumice fields
as if to show the haoles how

or how strange a woman can be:
Hawaiian enmeshed in Gilgamesh
cuneiform net ensnaring an uhu

about to be snatched 
from the cool bosom of the reef
into the brutal Makena air



the lashwork lattice for net-drying
gleams white in the noon sun
framing the red summit of Kahoolawe