Kirby's Wright's Weblog

Storm Birds Off Oahu

Storm birds off Oahu circle clockwise
then counterclockwise over the cobalt sea.
Today I swim out past the reef
into the deep water where the waves are built.
Everything pretends to be as it was--
the swells promising shorebreak,
the surfers powering into the break zone,
the prayers for yesterday's waves.
A turtle rises, gasps, fills its lungs with rainbow air.

I see the fields burning on the North Shore.

We hiked to find Old Hawai'i.
I remember you looking down
over the burning acres of Oahu cane
and the abandoned pine fields on Moloka'i.
The clouds were white flags on a blue sky.

The path I cut through this ocean
will be erased, the ripples giving way to reflection
of hotel towers, intersecting mountains, cane-smoked sky.
But our footprints are messages left behind:
kisses in the red earth.

Posted by at December 30, 2002 10:48 PM