Hawaii Day Nine (Part II)

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The drive back down and East, quick turn-around,
And, reunited, again Westward bound,
The one Kauaiian road learning our car.
This time we didn't echo quite as far,
Just to Waimea's "Shrimp Station" for lunch
(Shrimp tacos dripping juice with joyous munch
Upon the picnic tables by the street,
Where quiet Waimea held a red-dust heat),
Then East again, same road, back to the port:
Turn right, at once the island comes up short
And meets the Ocean's liberating blue.
We gathered with the others of our crew.

To sea! The catamaran leaps the meter
Ás it skiis the rollers sent to greet her:
Barefoot, all our footwear stacked on shore,
The inboard engines throbbing through the floor,
Some dozen of us tourists breast the bounce,
Torn by the wind and staggered by the jounce,
Of speeding freedom into the terrific
Open prairie of the blue Pacific!
"Lucky Lady" -- so we call our craft --
Is forty feet or so from fore to aft:
A central cabin rumbling low and dry
With beverage service (yes, and free Mai Tai),
An open cockpit stern with sunken thwarts,
Twin narrow bows that pound to the reports
Of shattered waves gulfing back sheets of spray --
Now port, now starboard -- soaking the gangway
That runs wide matching aisles down the sides --
The spot of choice for all who love such rides.
Offshore we have a clear blue sunlit day;
The cloudhead and the island fall away,
Presenting mountain profiles to our view,
Exchanging and receding. We pursue
A steady course a mile off the beach,
Just close enough to see, almost in reach,
Towns, houses, roads, familiars of the land,
People and turtles lounging on the strand,
While still suggesting, in the smoky rise
Of distant mountain mysteries to my eyes,
The virgin apparition Cook had seen
When first he raised its great and dreadful green.

This voyage is for play: we sip our drinks,
We throttle down for bottlenose hi-jinks,
We hail a paddle-boarder with his daughter
(Wildlife upon the azure water),
Happily we speed through spray and light...
While gradually the shoreline grows in height.
Subtle like shadows comes the chilling change,
And suddenly we're in a mountain range:
Napali Coast! Goal of the dinner cruise,
A brutal flex of bare and rugged thews,
The greenery and beaches of the Isle
Forgotten for a fell and fortress style
Composed of pitted, raw and rearing rocks,
Sheer from the sea in massive rusted blocks
That claw the sky with razor-taloned towers,
Flying buttresses of godless powers.
Nichelike arid valleys squeeze between,
By instant's passing angle only seen,
Crevasses of unfathomable bone
Holding the shadowed secrecy of stone
Where hermits could hide blissful, or the spears
Of tribal ambush fasten in your fears.



This quarter of Kauai's unreached by road,
No humans here to join its dry erode
Save those who boat around or come on foot
To blink and shudder at the mountains' root.
Here empty surf meets blinded rock in booms
That carve out unexpected little rooms --
A tiny shrine of beach and watered bush
Locked in beneath the towers' stony crush,
Or sea caves, giant mouseholes in the cliff
That arch immense and ragged o'er our skiff
As we poke closely in on shattered fizz.
They call this "scenic"; I suppose it is,
And so obligingly we smile and stare
And aim our cameras upwards into air,
Belittling the mountains to a frame
On which we can impose a human name.
And if the bald immensity of shapes
Insinuates a terror to our gapes,
Quick as we can, we come to Kalalau
(I'm back, though looking from the bottom now):
The greatest valley, and a bowl of green
That makes a reassuring tourist scene.

We pause for dinner here. In evening light,
Warm, gently bobbing in the breezes slight,
They serve a two-course heated meal afloat,
And homey smells of chicken fill the boat.
Like astronauts importing our abundance,
Hére we can relax in our redundance,
Grín at desolation like a park,
And toast the view with Mai Tais -- what a lark!
As if by premonition, I eat small,
And don't accept the offered alcohol.
And sure enough, soon as we turn for home
The rollers start to blow a little foam,
And as the evening strips away to black
The Ocean mounts a furious attack.
Wind at our head, swells hurtled at our bow,
Through cold and soaking sprays our engines plow,
While ever grows the underlying scale
Of climbs and plunges, servants to the gale:
Up, rising in a corkscrew to the sill
Of an immense onrushing liquid hill,
Then toppled to the dark and gulfing trough,
With pounding impact like to shake us off,
And up again, no slackening of speed,
We and the rollers endless in our need,
While far off, drunken on our starboard beam,
Tilts back and forth the last pink sunset gleam.
I'm raised on boats, and, like the light-foot crew,
I thrilled to the adventure through and through,
Knowing the storm not serious, took fun
In every upward shoot and downward stun;
I even clambered forward to the nose,
Tip of our starboard bow, to take the blows
Full force, cold hands clamped hard upon the railing,
Lifted from my feet with each impaling
Thrust we made into the coming wall!
But Sara didn't feel that way at all.
I joined her in the general tourist huddle
Sternwards, crowded in a cockpit muddle;
Stíff she sat with inward focused eye,
Giving her dinner's balance every try,
And not alone was she. A silence reigned
Among the well-fed fellows, and a pained
Contemplative intensity, while roared
The engines and the wind, and throbbed the board,
The fiberglass rebounding to each bash,
That threw our clinging clothes another dash.
A gentle Japanese man took first prize,
And just in time my sweetie closed her eyes,
Seeing him grope a bucket from the pile
And bring it quick to his inverted smile.
The contemplation deepened all around,
As new importance framed that plastic mound
Of small white buckets shown to us before;
The crew, alert and lively on the floor,
Swapped buckets for him and employed a hose
To clean it overboard, and back it goes
Upon the pile (awfully, on top),
And now the cascade starts and cannot stop.
Two, three, another, bending glumly double,
Every failure stirring further trouble;
"Kéep your eyes closed," I to Sara hiss,
But she is further isolate than this,
Deep in a meditation. I don't know
How far afield her spirit had to go,
But while I held her in my warming arm
She cast upon herself a fearsome charm
And stabilized her system through the sport
Of spouting passengers 'til we reached port.
Three cheers for this the triumph of her will!
Wan from her trial, happy with her skill,
We claimed our shoes upon the fastened Earth
And wandered inland from the dreadful berth.

Back to our car, and back home to our bed
Our day of double voyages was led,
Combining at the end to shared delight
In dryness, warmth, solidity, and night.

--Matt