Meadow Pause

 Meadow Pause is what he called it.

But Meadow Pause made me feel like a confused,

overheated cow pausing in a meadow beside a guava tree.

A plump famished cow

Nay, a tail swatting cow

swiping a multitude of relentless flies.

Mooing in a high-pitched voice to Mother Nature about trade-wind breezes.

Causing my mood to surge from pink to blue and then see red, while sliding down a temperamental roller coaster in a pinball machine, stirring up a myopic zeal to murder Father Time.

A confused, overheated, plump, famished, moody, myopic cow, plodding down a meadow path in a sticky pasture, contemplating the change.

before my milk runs dry and I become irrelevant and invisible.

Or worse, before I cease to exist and someone turns me into a giant bag of rawhide dog chews.

The considerable dilemma of one confused, bellowing, moody, myopic, fat cow that would not go quietly through the rails.

No, indeed

This pacing, panting, drooling cow promises

to alert the other cow bitches

that are sure to follow.

Ft. Shafter Ladies

 Pacific golden plovers

Do a hopscotch dance,

Parade on dense fairways 

through sprinklers advance.

Stalked by a female tribe 

swinging metal shafts,

chasing after dimpled spheres 

of a bone-crushing blast.

 

Then, frightened by a thirsty sow 

midst eggshells littered mean,

as a pig dog lounges, on a nearby

 red-flagged green

 

Now three metal cranes stiffly survey 

from an urban rain forest in concrete dismay.

 

As this senior, giggling, practiced group 

stuff another four-inch hole,

with multi-hued and coded balls 

In measured, arthritic control.

 

They pause at the ninth to add their separate scores 

Then resumed their play to win this local Army course. 

Finishing eighteen with time to spare, the weekly game, 

And collect their winning shares. 

 Wild Catch

 

It was hot again that night,

on an isle of sea and sand.

A small wild girl sat fishing, 

scraped knees upon the land.

The tide was rushing out,

as twilight had begun,

exposing crabs and clams, 

by dinner’s midnight sun. 

She’d crouched into the water still,

while seagulls flew on by,

and waited for a tempting bite,

beneath the star-filled sky.

The prize she waited for, 

while gliding on its way,

did not surpass this small lass,

who waited in the bay,

and as it swam, she reached out her hand,

and scooped it clean away.

She took it home to show the clan

this trophy fish she caught with her bare hands

to confirm that daughters can also do

whatever in hell they set their minds to.

What Colors Do You Breathe

 What Colors Do You Breathe

 

I inhale a rainbow.

And I exhale a blue language
of nouns and verbs.
My syntax
frozen in the stratosphere
high above the observatory, inside a cloud straddling
Mauna Kea. 
I am in search of dynamic metaphors
while observing the stars shooting across the heavens.

 

My clauses are swirling sunlight down behind the waterfalls
over and through the cracks and crevices of black and gold
lava flows, hardened by decades of cooling
now joined by violet joy bushes
and a profusion of bright green tree ferns 
still erupting into red phrases
congealing into the deep blue Pacific
with fiery tongues ablaze.

Big Island

 

Chain of Craters Road

closed due to the eruption

posted at entrance.

 

Volcanic river

erupts spewing smoke and ash

glowing red-orange.

 

Visitors observe

geysers spurt from volcano

generating steam.

 

Artist's impression

inspires a flowing poem

colors refract light.

Traces

 

Plant 

an ohia seed

crack a lava ribbon.

 

Sail

the Pacific, 

greet the kohola.

 

Pedal

with the wind,

listen for the elepa’io.

 

Hike

to a hei’au,

touch the sacred.

 

Dig

in the black sand,

expose the crusty scab.

 

Pause

to sign the autograph tree,

comprehend the invasive. 

  

Super Moon

 

My fur also rises.

I shake resolutely.

Insatiable, as shifting tides

yield to a Super Moon

bathing unabashedly

in a hammerhead bay in the Pacific.

Sister Moon is placid

as she slices through blackout curtains.

Until I witness her spirit here in the Northeast.

I am a wild thing,

And she is a flirt.

As she straddles

cool peaks and crags

 I find myself drawn

to her again.

As I howl at her figure, gulp down the afterglow above.

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