Kanaio Ruins, Maui. 1/23/2000
Three miles over the lava fields and you find it
the old village, the tidepools, the wind.
If the mountain heaves up
to the left, the ocean insists to
the right, and you think
I would have loved it just fine here.
I would have rested easy.
But it’s hundreds of years too late for that.
When you look up from chasing
the brittle star,
when you look up from
the cowries crusted in
advantageous corals and
all the gobies that panic as
you loom over their tidepools at
the seam of the world;
when you look up the old
ruins just stand there,
just stand there like an answer.
If you are me you pick the burrs from
your socks. You find your water bottle
and lens cover.
You put the hermit crab back
and apologize. If
you are me you take your
21st century body back down
the coast, back to the car and go home
and the old ruins and the tidepools,
they get to hum together
they get to chant and tremble
under the unchanging stars.
