Haleakala, drawing

Lobster study, Maui, (drawing)

At Bob Marley‘s memorial bash

Maui madness across the moon
dark clouds over Haleakalā.

Haleakalā, a persimmon-colored bowl
to feed the sun.

Dark clouds brood over Haleakalā
Lahaina, Maui at Bob Marley's memorial bash.
Ziggy works the crowd. Jah love.
Every little thing gonna be all right.

The moon rises over the West Maui Mountains
in a reggae rhythm, clouds of blue smoke roll over us
while Gary and Steve sleep inside the Haleakalā crater.
Inside the vault, the story of striated volcanic ash.
Haleakalā's ambergris, a gift from the a’aina.
Turn on the headlights in the clouds.

Coco-lulu, Maui while we, while we…
Every little thing, reefer madness.

I’m a Haleakalā Howley. Deep ecology.
A’aina waihini. Lanai hula call Ina.
Ina oaka oaka oaka i ka lani la.
Hula dancers. The earth abides.

The sky sweeps the land of now, we are cursed.
They will return from the crater with empty pockets
and an empty heart gladdened by the sun.

On the whale road, curved water, Lahaina.

I’m a Haleakalā Haole
howling at Bob Marley's memorial reggae bash.
Moonrise over the West Maui Mountains
takes my breath away
while Gary and Steve dream
inside the Haleakalā crater.
Striated volcanic ash, a gift of ahinahina
Silversword and ambergris of Haleakalā
turn on the headlights in the cloud.
Marley’s last words: Money can’t buy life.

5/26/1983

The rocks of Maui are cursed
remove no rocks from the island he said
for bad luck will follow you.

Will Staple sleeping, Maui Zendo, 1983 (drawing)

2 POEMS: FAMINE FOOD, MONGOOSE MANGOES

FAMINE FOOD

Finger bananas 

banana toes 

little apple bananas 

taking seven years to grow

Will chopped down the banana tree 

famine food for the crossing.

5/25/1983

MONGOOSE MANGOES

Jacques, having some trouble 

with his English, asks me, 

have you picked any 

mongooses for breakfast?

5/25/1983

added 9/15/20116

Hawaii Journal 5/25/83 doodle drawing

Hawaii Journal 5/25/83 fossilized bones, extinct flightless Hawaiian bird, drawing

Fossilized bones of a large flightless extinct Hawaiian bird

Kay Kepler drawing! Hawaii Journal 5/25/83

Kay was our host for the deep ecology conference in Maui with Gary Snyder as the keynote speaker. We spent an afternoon and evening in a bungalow halfway up the slopes of Haleakala viewing a slideshow of indigenous species. She showed a slides of bromeliads and asked what we thought the parent plant was. In a room full of ecologists and botanists, I was the only one who guessed that it was a geranium species. The flower gave it away, Like the silver sword that grows on the slopes of Haleakalā, it looks like it should be in echium like pride of Madeira, but its parent plant was a California tarweed. 

2 POEMS: FLYING TO MAUI, DREAM SEQUENCE

FLYING TO MAUI

Scut cloud shadows on the ocean 

like darkened continents

Or sunken coral reefs

Modern mariner plane 

writing the air currents 

a ship of the sky.

5/24/1983?

 
DREAM SEQUENCE

I come from the past 

unerringly into your thorn shadow 

and we drink the deep water

from under the bridge. 

5/24/1983?

added 9/13/2016

2 POEMS: UP THE PALI, GUAVA JAVA

UP THE PALI

Up the Pali, the Chinese called this place 

the land of Sandalwood. 

Ginger and plumeria laden the air.

A solitary gecko chuckles in the night.

Koko head, Koko crater 

last point of volcanic activity in Oahu.

Pele, the fire goddess went looking 

for a last home here. Found none.

On the plains of Oahu, 

pineapples grow green skirts.

Dance in the wind.

8/23? 1983

added 9/15.2016

minor revision

GUAVA JAVA

The sun sculpted rain on the mountains

exoderm of ridges leaving rigid lava teeth exposed

The weight of ironwoods anchored in Pali winds.

8/23? 1983

added 9/15.2016

LOS CAPRICCIOS DEL PARADISO

LOS CAPRICCIOS DEL PARADISO

 —one breakfast delight, $2.45 plus tax

The mangoes aren't ripe,

the papayas aren't perfect

and the last tango was in Paris.
Pineapples ripen ever four years,
bananas take seven,
mangoes come twice a year

and in Waikiki—home to the spenders of paradise,
no grass hut for John Steinbeck
or anyone else for that matter,
pods of bronzed bodies outnumber 
the Hawaiian monk seals before colonization

where every season, the season of the tourist.
There is an open season on paradise every two blocks

But the fish still swim in Hanauma Bay, 

their bodies drift with the current

like leaves in the wind, 

and all is forgiven.

5/23/1983

Oahu, HI

added 9/15/2016

POSTCARD TO MARIANNE AND DAVE WARE

POSTCARD TO MARIANNE AND DAVE WARE

Aloha from Oahu.

The birds of paradise 

seem to get stuck up tourist noses

And the only real cure 

is to spend some puka puka.

The waihinis in bikinis on Waikiki

give rise to mail expectations,

But, the fish don't mind 

and that's the current count in the end. 

We all shaka shaka bro, Da kine,

Okay, okay, we hang loose.

The sign says it's okay, okay

And da water, she fine.

No Pele tears here.

Pele, she quiet for now.

Missionary man, he slapped her down good.

But she be like yeast bread 

in a bowl, rising, rising.

Soon, she make ready for da oven.

Oahu, HI

5/23/1983

added 9/15/2016

THE BIRDS OF PARADISE

The birds of paradise 

seem to get stuck up tourist noses 

and the only real cure 

is to spend some puka-puka.

The wahines in bikinis on Waikiki 

give rise to the mail expectations 

but the fish don't mind 

and that's the current count in the end.

We all shaka-shaka, dakine, okay-okay, hang loose.

The sun says it's okay-okay underwater, she fine.

No Pele tears here

Pele, she quiet for now.

Missionary man, he slapped her down good.

But she, like yeast bread in a bowl, rising. Rising.

Soon she make ready for the oven.

Aloha, Mahalo, mahalo.

5/23/1983

Obligatory Hug, May 1983, Franklin St. Clubhouse, Santa Rosa (Maureen Hurley, Marianne Ware)

THREE POEMS from Hawaii

CHILDREN OF THE SEA

The children of the sea, 

the children of Mauna Loa

Pele raging against the sky

The fish swim between her toes 

in Hanamua Bay.

Her crying reaches the sea,

her black tears cool in its depths.

PAPAYAS

Papaya trees holding their clutch 

from beneath their leafy crowns.

Papaya trees holding their plantations skirts 

above their clutches of fruit

Waking to the cooling of Japanese doves 

wondering where I am anyway.

BREAKFAST DELIGHT

Papaya, Plumaria, papaya 

papaya papaya papaya.

White doves on the lanais in the tropical rain

Mahalo wahini, aloha welcome to Hawaii 

Hibiscus sunrise. Mahalo, Mahalo.

One breakfast delight, $2.45 plus tax.
$2.45 plus tax.

5/20-22/1983

Oahu, Hawaii

added 9/15/2016

RRWG reading, Franklin St. Clubhouse, with Marianne Ware, Maureen Hurley

MANINI

MANINI

How does the current level wave

capture that luminescence from the sky?

Tiny transparent fish in the surf 

schools of manini grazing on the coral 

as the wave changes, they suddenly shift 

as if they were fall leaves blowing in the wind.

The shifting wave swings the aspen leaf 

bodies of the fish about, as if a sudden dance 

of fall stirred them to madness.

Pale rainbow fish, zebra-striped eels, blue string worms.

How can one describe the hundreds of fish in the reef?

May 20-22? 1983

Added 9/15/2016

FRAGMENTS

FRAGMENTS

The tentacles of the Banyan tree strangled, 

seeking wisdom from the earth.

Too much of a good thing is good for nothing.

Watching Hawaii 5-0 in Waikiki'i

is like déjà vu all over again.

The USS Arizona Memorial 

rests atop a thousand soldiers 

entombed beneath its decks.

5/19/1983

added 9/15/2016

RIDING THE NUMBER 20 BUS

RIDING THE NUMBER 20 BUS

Riding the number 20 bus

the driver singsongs the stops in duplicate:

Diamondhead, Diamondhead

Nimitz Highway, Nimitz Highway

Two types of coconuts over dere 

coconut tree, over dere, coconut tree.

Good shave ice. Shave ice. Kailua, Kailua.

Windward side, Windward side

Punchbowl Arena, up dere Yea, up dere.

Condominiums, condominiums.

See da banyan tree, da banyan tree

Ala Moana, Ala Moana. Hang loose, 
hang loose, bro, sistah, we almost dere. 

Almost dere. Aloha, aloha.

5/19/1983

added and slightly revised 9/15/2016

LAHAINA

LAHAINA

The tentacles 

of the Banyan tree 

dangle down 

seeking wisdom 

from the earth.

Too much 

of a good thing 

is good for nothing.

5/19/1983
I added title later.

2000 MILES FROM SHORE

2000 MILES FROM SHORE

Flying west along the path of the sun, 

a perpetual noon blazing on the ocean, 

occasional clouds, carpeted white against the blue—

I awaken from sleep with words 

slowly crystallizing in the conscious realm of thought.

Where do thoughts sleep?

Clouds forming vast mountain ranges at sea

Clouds forming milk skins across the volcanoes.

Tiny islands, mid-Pacific, land catching the clouds, 

a shawl draped over paradise.
All cultivated lands look the same from the air.

The vacant gleam of dark eyes:

the twin summits of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea
watching the sky for signs.

5/17-18/1983

Oahu, HI

added 9/15/2016
slightly revised

Mimi & Livena drawing, Hawaii Journal 5/17/83

FIRST TIME

FIRST TIME
— for Jim Byrd

Our canoe rounded a sheltered river bend

collecting calm emerald water

until it glistened in a slow curved smile.

The towering trees punctuated its mirrored speech.

From our raised paddles, words escaped

unannounced as water droplets

spawning concentric ripples

in an undulating desire toward shore.

Who is naming these silent tremblings,

sneaking up, canoe-like along the river

where, like deer coming down for an evening drink,

our hearts stopped, afraid to slake their thirst?

Who will stand guard while they ask the river

where the trees stop and the reflections begin?

Through the trees the wind is trickling.

Only the shore answers in a slow curved smile.

Years later, while drinking from separate rivers

we keep asking each other the same questions,

and our hearts, no less thirsty or afraid,

find nothing in the backwaters, except ourselves.

1983
rev./88
Forestville

1984 Deepest Valley Review

Obligatory Hug, May 1983, Franklin St. Clubhouse, Santa Rosa (poem)

I was scheduled to read with Marianne Ware at the Franklin St. Clubhouse in Santa Rosa on May 22, but according to my journals. it looks like I stayed in Hawaii instead. However, I had a poem in the Obligatory Hug. So I'm posting it as a publishing credit. Rites of Extreme Unction

AMBER

AMBER

From the listlessness of fog,

and the dark regeneration of cherozim soil

to the pungent breath of hot summer’s evening,

comes my whispering shadows

trading secrets with the wind.

After a long winter, animals bend

me toward their mouths and learn

the tender filaments of spring.

Worn around the neck of a woman,

I am the pine forests weeping before the fire,

and the artists’ solvent, I am the amber tears

pressed to the deep bosom of the earth,

liquid sun, frozen sun, the eyes of tigers,

the eyes of snakes, bees hidden inside me.

The fog rises until I no longer see

the grey whales drifting on the Baltic.

5/83?  84? with Susan Kennedy’s class CPITS

I was in Hawaii May 17