Before those azure water-swaggering faults
Opened to me, I reasoned like everyone else
In the North, where long windows filter celery light
In winter-ice air upon stone walls-and the quiet
Gropes inward. Holy names and words of the dead,
My own filming with them, stirred civilly toward God.
Ungiven, I shivered among them, before I came here.
I came here over the huge bulge and veer
Of the ocean, gapping out, breaking the roar
Of the planet, even. And it was not God-it was water
Sounding in my veins and in the unbalanced canals
Of my ears. It was myself. It was water and the scrape of coral
In my flesh as I thrust myself to the rescue I have
Found on this bright reef.
Though the world's
caves
And crusts are buckling, I cannot ever go back,
Pledged now to earlier mysteries. Red firecracks
In the fluid earth spit bolts of stone, flaring,
High piling over guard rails and roads. Where
Is the wall that will not melt in lava, the prints
Great waters will not drown? Things vanish, wince
Into elements, force them to flower-ohia lehua,
Kiawe, ironwood, hau, into humid air, scatter
Of dove wings.
Smoke odors thicken my throat, my hair
Blackens, and am I not honey-color, when fire
Fountains at the faults?