transformation within a boat ride

on Kauai's edge

the boat roars across the gentlest sea

our tour guides have seen so far this year,

we hug the coast,

not far from beach

and ascending green,

then we throttle down:

spinner dolphins show themselves to us,

worth a pause,

quick pictures,

and marveling at their antic exuberance,

the settled north edge of Kauai

is replaced by the cliffs of the west,

here magma's story is clearer

than where rain and roots, leaf and trunk, 

clothe the skeletal structure of geology's backstory,

in the Hawaiian islands that backstory 

keeps emerging from one of Earth's hot spots,

a tunnel through the mantle

where melted rock from miles down

flows out onto the crust,

into the ocean,

and in a prolonged fit of creation

makes land where only ocean was before,

we cruise just off the cliff's edges,

exploring waterfalls where the land

gives water back to the mother sea,

where lava tubes remain as tunnels,

some as grottos into which we can pass

and marvel at the shapes and acoustics

such gratuitous construction can express,

a sea turtle visits and agrees that this is a good place to be,

the land brazenly reaches toward the sky,

sharp lines, thrusted points, peaks,

blanketed by green wherever rain, sun, and flora can assert will,

a heavily-monitored foot-trail snakes along the steep dropping,

and we wave at some of the hikers,

we pause in a cove with a coral reef near the surface,

and snorkel above it, all a-marvel

at the abundance of beautiful variegated fish,

all hard at work finding food,

and just overwhelming us with their beauty of self,

in the assuredness of the grace of their movements,

we roar back with even the calmer surface

bouncing us up and down as if on an aggressive roller-coaster,

we hear stories of 50 inches of rain in 24 hours,

of a hurricane fierce enough to tear all leaves from the trees,

trees who fully recovered their foliage in 6 months,

temperatures, rain, possibilities here on Kauai,

reminiscent of Eden,

back when the Earth ached to produce abundance,

and we were few enough not to tax the possibilities,

to get here does tax the planet,

hours upon hours of flying 5-7 miles high,

and crossing near halfway over the greatest ocean on this world,

like the ubiquitous feral chickens,

maybe we should just go native and stay here.

by Henry H. Walker

July  3, ‘23