Hawaii Day Five

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Come Sara's birthday in this magic place!
The morning sunlight found her happy face
Gazing from off the hotel balcony
Over the ever-scintillating sea
Bequeathing teal-green corals to her eyes
Beneath the bluest of Hawaiian skies.

That evening (it would be our last in Kona)
By arrangement prior, we'd be shown a
Classic Hawaiian luau. Oy. Til' then,
We breakfasted at local "Bongo Ben,"
A beachy hangout on our Kona strip,
And, creaky from the last day's driving trip,
Stayed slow and local here. We browsed the town:
Tourists and natives driving up and down
The single road between the boardwalk wall
And line of claptrap shop and market-stall;
Cerulean surf reared fountain-crowns of spray
And out beyond, upon the sunlit bay,
A cruise ship lay at anchor, kayaks flashed,
The tour boats hovered and the swimmers plashed;
Ashore, the crowds of Visitors meandered,
Tanned and lotioned, through the shops that pandered
Tó their appetite for flowered shirts,
Drinks, flip-flops, snorkels, shave ice, sarong skirts;
Warren of little alleys, brilliant signs
Competing in their half-askew designs,
All crammed and toppling in this tiny focal
Point of tourist pleasure: Kona local.

Through the flux of sunny revelry,
We found the stately House of Hulihee,
An 1830s residence of Kings
Replete with royal furniture and things:
We took the tour and tried our best to glean
Some culture, but the blue inviting scene
Beyond the windows beckoned us again
Outdoors. We photographed the grounds and then
We drove around the headland, found a beach,
And stayed there for some hours. There we each
Bent to our art, me writing poetry,
And Sara sketching ledges on the sea,
Companiable in silence in the shade,
Secluded in a little wooded glade,
Sand in our toes, we whiled away the time --
A birthday afternoon of the sublime.

The hotel had a saltwater lagoon
And, on returning, she and I were soon
Confronting it with snorkels on our head.
Uncertain, balancing a draw and dread,
Both having merely practiced this before,
We tiptoed to the shallow baby shore
And waded in, then, with the smallest shove,
Were face-down, breathing, seeing, and -- in love!
O wonders of the underwater world!
Discovered there in liquid sunlight swirled:
Haven of angels, creatures sweet and bright,
Unveiling grace and pageant to our sight,
Golds, carmines, neons, striped and piped in hues
Fantastic to behold, in ones and twos
Or small armadas decked with racing banners,
Delicate in flight, with gentle manners
Nosing at the reefs or rippled sand
Or vanished from a slow extended hand,
All iridescence, each a living wish,
Unearthly glory -- dare you call them fish?

Deep may we plumb the mystery of why
Such beauty seems designed for human eye.
Who placed here things of pure aesthetic pleasure?
Whát's this game, Muse, of your hidden treasure?
Whý do meteors, blazing through the stars,
Trailing their dead incinerating scars
Across the vault of heaven, flash like gold?
What ciphered story are we being told?
Why look we, seek we, travel we, to find
These things that in themselves are blank and blind?
What in us vibrates to these signals sent
Down ocean bottoms or o'er firmament,
Finding our secret souls reflected there
In truest Beauty, Art beyond compare?
We stand, we leave the tidepool, doff our mask,
Equipment fitting us to only ask.

At sunset, with our freshly-showered hair
And casual Hawaiian evening wear,
We lined up on the lawn to join the luau.
What's a self-respecting Muse to do, now?
Spectacle of unrepentant schmaltz!
But somehow, through its tackiness and faults,
Its grunting beefcake dancers, Hula girls,
Its fire jugglers trading baton twirls,
Its band that switched from slide guitar to drumming
Equal in their skill, equally numbing
Ín their flat and passionless effect,
Its grinning gladhand host whose dialect
Was kin to tones of AM radio
As, interspersing jokes, he led the show,
Its dancing based on brute athletic tests,
Its plastic shells on Polynesian breasts,
Its rows of staring tourists down each table
Slurping Mai Tais (all that you were able) --
Somehow, yes, some artistry came through,
If only in the purity of true
(I mean Historic) stamp of stereotype,
A value in the very trope of tripe,
As crystallizing a regime of mind,
Half out to conquer, half to seek and find,
That (don't deny it, Muse) used art as violence
Half to love and half to kill these Islands.

O, my sweetie, in your yellow lei,
A smiling rider on your natal day,
Let's smile together in the lilting beat
And pile our trays with pork and fish to eat;
We'll watch the sun go down behind the palms
And sell our luau dreaming back as alms.

--Matt