A Lei in the Kilauea Crater


 Hawaii consisted of the huge cubes and horizons all around, and the sky expanded towards the unlimited cubic horizon. And over there, no familiar growth of vertical cypresses was admitted. Phyllis and I were standing on the observatory at Kilauea crater. The lava concealed the furious power and was filled by a strange calmness killing even the sound of wind.
"Heli's sound is too noisy, Hy"
"Yeah, ..... but it's curiously calm over here, Phyllis."
Saying, I looked back the crater from the sky to listen to the calmness of the earth canting my ear towards the crater.
"Look!, Phyllis, what is that flower in the crater just below this platform?"
"That's a lei."
"A lei? Was that blown away by the wind, maybe?"
"No."
"..... Oh!, dedicated, then?"
No answer was made by her, but watching the lei, I felt a sense that she nodded silently standing by my right side, resting her elbows on the fence and crossing her hands lightly. Really at that moment, I did see a huge intersection of horizontality and verticality - a cross of time and space with that white lei forming the node. At the same time, I saw and heard clearly a magnificent drama of the universe of love and prayer - a grand orchestra of humanity, nature and the universe. My numbed brain melted into deep space. Tears that I have never experienced before flooded my heart in a significant silence in the earth..
　

(for Phyllis celebrating 
a happy birthday this year too)