Songs of the Islands (2005)
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1. Manoa Falls
From Songs of the Islands (2005) Go there in the early time —Know the secrets of the trees.Walk the path of muddy rock.Meet the orchid on her knees.Go there in the early time —open field of dreaming mist,clearing in the tangled green,early sunlight gently kissed.Go there in the early time — know for now we […] Read more…
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2. Haleakala
From Songs of the Islands (2005) A gift of years: one small seed.Winds from other shorestossed down,and zephyrs buried life beneath dust.Waiting there, eagerness sprouts from barrenness,choice from indecision,boldness from the fleeting fearof all the crumbling earth.Persistence, silversword:grip mountain stones,decades drinking mistand eating volcanic rock.Sun and snow and heat and wind.Tender leaves widening their strength […] Read more…
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3. All the Fish I Saw One Day
From Songs of the Islands (2005) These are all the fish I saw one daywhen I snorkeled Hanauma Bay:Bonefish, milkfish, manybar goatfish,bird wrasse, saddle wrasse, yellowfin surgeonfish,convict tang, Achilles tang, redlip parrotfish,moorish idol, Christmas wrasse, flat-tailed needlefish.Scarface blenny, black sergeant, orangeband surgeonfish,doublebar goatfish, moray eel, hawkfish,zebra blenny, sailfin tang, ornate wrasse, trumpetfish,whitespotted toby, and a […] Read more…
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4. Kilauea
From Songs of the Islands (2005) We journey on the frozen wavesof roughly hardened, cooled off stoneto find the place where flowing rock, consumed,at once becomes the living ocean.Daring walk across the black,beneath the glowing points of light,we long for distant orange fires,and work our will to move towardthe line where sea and sky and […] Read more…
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5. Pahoehoe
From Songs of the Islands (2005) But Yahweh sees all the stars behind the clouds.Piercing bright, He is the fire in waters above and waters below,and that death He buries within His heartburns fire of life and bursting forth.So hearts of smoothly hardened stoneboil bright below with breath of God. Composed February 28, 2005 by […] Read more…
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6. Kipuka Pua’ulu
From Songs of the Islands (2005) Heard, unseen, above the bending fern, breezes move atop ’o’hia trees.Branches on the mountain slopehold nectar, mist, and birds.Deeper in the air is calm,caught in dreams of resting limbsand ferny moss on all their leaves,like memory clinging to the trees.And deeper still a place securedby cloak of dark and […] Read more…
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7. Beyond the Veil
From Songs of the Islands (2005) A silhouette of sinking sunpronouncing all its labor doneslips down to join the earth as one — the ocean still remains.The salt grass dancing in the breeze,the starlight in the hala trees,a work of art that no one sees — the ocean still remains.Beyond the veil of day and […] Read more…