Kauai
                    In Memory of John Logan, out of our human love

i. Kokee

This is not virgin wilderness.
Many kings, warriors, and priests
before us have listened
in the winds of these pinnacles
for a voice
ancient as the falls
and from as far a place
sifting through branched
ohia lehua rooted in the walls
and wrenched
over the chasm.

I give names to your questions:
This is the koa
whose leaves are like crescents of moon,
and that, lau hala,
with spidery roots
outspread to brace the trunk.
From its fibrous leaves
tough mats are woven.
Below, rimming the beaches,
ironwood breaks the hard wind
that blows from the sea.

But such names are not what you need
for the pain you keep
                             having
to do with beauty
or gorgeous fear.

In that original wilderness
all words become
a flicker of syllables.
I know that friends,
a man and a woman,
cannot go into that huge quiet
together.

Go alone, then, go with love.
                Bring
out of that early forest
the Name you need.

In Kalalau there is a fall of water
that has no name.
I will stay there for you.

ii. Waimea Canyon

These moist rails-barriers.

The canyon spreads a silence huge and simple as the ocean
                subsiding for centuries.

We more than plunge among juts and raw pinnacles,
Dream-tracing, like the sea, striations on red rock.

One bird rising describes the wide levels the sea fell down
Pulling from slopes and drops all the solving shades with
                its white wings.

None of us remembers these falls of rock drowned
Or what heavy waters pummeled the lost chasms and made these
                outer walls, these mountainous inner folds,
Which the sun distorts gently, casting light inside the rim.

History is not this red canyon where we shall not find a way
But ourselves near the falling road
At the rail here
Where you have kissed my mouth, John.

iii. State Park Canyon

We got lodged in there tight
Fronting the fire you made of damp logs
That hissed and sizzled in a stone place
But burned all night.
I said you were like Adam
Or some later thin-lipped saint I couldn't remember
Or a plain man
    your arms heavy as logs I couldn't life
    across my back holding me pinioned
    as we stood barefoot on warm floorboards.
    It was the cold you held me from.
Thee is a loving man.
Thee is sent from God with good news.

　

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