Hawaii Day Ten

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From sea to air: my helicopter ride!
As if to see Kauai from every side,
We'd booked this tour back home. Now it was come,
I wasn't sure another motor's hum
Transporting other windows with my face
Would get me any closer to this place
On this my last day here. Was scenery
Indeed the only path to poetry?
Was this what I expected when I flew,
Muse to my breast, across the bounding blue
To find myself upon these islands? Art,
It seems, should something more to do with heart.
My blog has missed the mark; something was lost;
I'm decoyed down a glamour overglossed:
Another couplet for a mountain green --
Another paean to an ocean scene --
Another guided tour -- what would it mean?
There should be something deeper...some way in,
Some spirit from the places we have been
Attaching a connection at the soul
Instead of to the endless camera roll.
Alas, I sing vacations -- don't I, Muse?
Given us much, much less to us refuse;
We step on commerce's conveyor belt
Where only the exchange of cash is felt,
Are funneled through a gulped economy
Whose moment's morsel the reality
That keeps the airplanes flying, spigots on,
The mountains green, the green upon the lawn,
The dreams upon the posters on the wall
That fringe the mental verge from which we fall,
Chasing a shadow, kicking once the wheel
To turn the great machine of how we feel,
And what we know, and do, here in our time --
And O, across the age Cook strikes the rhyme:
"Pacific Ocean." Sure. Give us a beach,
My friend, and shadows of the clubs' upreach
Behind our living backs. I almost wish.
The last vacation day serves a cold dish.

Sara was sick. I mean, some years ago,
From helicopters, and she wouldn't go.
So once again, I took the car alone
This early morning, while the bright sun shone,
Unsettled too at separateness again,
This anniversary as yet -- but then,
Ahead of me there lurked a fascination
Older than Hawaii or vacation:
Helicopters. Always I had dreamed --
From childhood or younger, so it seemed --
Of taking to the air in such a ship
(Of flying it myself!)...The chances slip
Like years through fingers, still I never had,
The dream discarded as a youthful fad,
Test too expensive for a thing untrue.
But give vacation finances their due:
Thrown in with the Hawaiian avalanche,
The chopper ride expenses had a chance.
Add nervousness, then, to my troubled state,
Exhuming finally a half-buried fate:
What for Kauai no longer had a need
Was deeper opening a dormant seed,
The fond chimera of the youthful fad
Now bodied at the airport helipad,
An insect black and bubbled in the sun,
Doors open for me! Not quite having fun,
I join five others where we group and sit
And fumble through the life preserver kit
In roaring backwash at the verge of field.
And then into the bubble we are sealed.
The weird machine, close-quartered, noisy, steel,
When fastened shut on me comes sudden real,
And I, who seasick laughed at yesterday,
Happy and prancing in the open spray,
Feels stomach quiver in this leather seat
Close to my neighbor's breath in glassy heat.
The headphones wrap me, tinny volume high,
And then, with bare a nudge, we start to fly.

Forget all questions! This -- is where it's at!
Like magic we detach the grassy flat
And pop into the sky a weightless inch,
Rove backward, turning, agile as a finch
That flicks its wings across the summer lawn,
Tilt once, and from the pull of Earth are gone.
Sickness forgotten: almost with a blow
My spirit claims my body, keen to go!
I tell you what -- all grandeurs of Kauai
That for the hour passed our windows by
Are second to that swift and silent pass
Twenty feet backward, one inch from the grass.
You had me there! My childhood dreams of flying,
Stepping to the air by simply trying,
Áll were real, were just like this. I'm right --
The helicopter's formed for my delight.
The airport drops away as if we shrug
Ourselves above the brown and emerald rug,
Select a height and lounge there, looking round,
Then aim up at a mountain, take a bound,
And clear the beetling ridge with just a breeze
Between our bubble and the tips of trees,
Go floating down the ridgeline o'er a trail
As if just kicked the soil here to sail,
Drift sideways o'er the plunging valley green,
Then plunge ourselves, pursuing what we've seen,
A shining glint, a hidden waterfall;
We hover there, then skirt the mighty wall
Of some sheer cliff extending high above,
A window-washer free to swing and move
Or toss the job entire, head to sea,
Wish-drifting to whatever sights agree.
The landscapes of Kauai, all crinkled up
In sunlit verdant hump and shadowed cup,
Were lovely but of secondary thrill
To this our fairy navigating skill.
Flitting we touched on all the herald host,
Waimea, Kalalau, Napali Coast,
But better liked than they, I must confess,
Were the lost tracts of roadless wilderness
That spread their virgin mysteries below
In swards and swales of greenery, aglow
As if illumined from a light beneath.
From sharkback flanges of the mountain teeth
To little waterfalls' sequestered pools
Inset in velvet like translucent jewels,
The land was empty, waiting, like a set
Of everything we seek, or must forget.
The pilot's voice, deadpan, close in our ear,
Names all the features as we sally near;
At times I slide the earphones from my head,
Preferring helicopter noise instead,
The lovely whining roar of magic flight
That best accompanies this sort of sight.
And soon our island circle is complete;
Lihue and the airport scenes repeat,
Rising so gently toward us, like we trod
An aery stairway curving to the sod,
And finally took the last step to the grass
As if relenting once again to mass.
O thank you, helicopter pilot John,
Reviving dreams to base new dreams upon
(Of flying it myself!); with body buoyant,
Almost with a spirit clairovoyant,
Hálf as if I'd bounce again to sky,
I skipped the red-dirt soil of Kauai
Back to the car, and the vacation day,
With half an eye somewhere further away.






Sara had spent the morning at the beach,
Speed-sketching all attractions within reach
Of her fast-flying pencil and black book
(Alternative that often drew a look
Of wistful admiration from the hordes
In busy service to their camera lords
When, at some railing, gulping vistas raw,
They'd see her whet her older tools and draw).
Her journey's art she also meant to post
By daily blog, and likewise now was lost,
Marooned by vanished Internet with mine
In shared aesthetic of a private line.

Reunioned now (still aery in my feet),
We stopped again at Puka Dog to eat
(Hi Amy!), then returned to Poipu strand
For one last snorkel o'er the golden sand.
The sea was stronger, and with boiling roar
The coiling surf embarriered the shore;
We walked a sandbar out into the bay
That served to swing the flanking swells its way;
The crests clapped on the bar, as, ankle-deep,
The turquiose water made an upward leap
Chest-high and higher, trapping in pure glee
A girl who posed, applauded by the sea.
But notwithstanding all this blow and spray,
The swimmers frolicked in their sunny play,
And so we donned our snorkels and went in.
But soon we found, to Sara's great chagrin,
As outward through the surge we tried to ford,
That buoyancy becomes a doubled sword:
Salt-water lifted, tumbled all about,
Hard to get in, and harder to get out,
She lay, rolled and defeated, in the wash
That o'er the quicksand surged its fizzing slosh.
The meanwhile, underwater, all was blurred
In clouds of dark and swirling sand upstirred.
And so, kissing and giggling with love,
We beat retreated to our favored cove
In shelter of the reef. Here we could swim
And see, tucked close against their rocky rim,
The brilliant fish. A while we swam together,
Buffeted by underwater weather,
Pointing in our silence to a flash
Of luminescent flagships' sudden dash,
To follow in a hasty kicking tour
Between the sunken rocks and sandy floor;
Encountering a better, branching off,
And finally, standing with a sniff and cough
To clear the mask, and finding with a start
She and myself a hundred yards apart.

Three turtles, feeding almost at the shore,
Oblivious to all gathered to adore --
Some standing in the shallows, eyes in air,
Some mask-down, under-element to share
(Myself afloat, but helpless to the thrust
Back and then at them, threatening our trust) --
Became the final sigil of the beach.
Ocean and air: with equal home in each,
To swim, to bask, in patient liesure ply
The intermixing layers of Kauai,
The sacred turtles measure out the me,
And from our shared littoral family
Dispatch us home with silent knowing smile,
Acolytes of the mystic giving Isle.

And now, the final evening of our trip:
Back at the Hyatt, well-dressed, hip to hip,
We stroll the pathways to our waiting table
Ín a restaurant like a children's fable:
"Tidepools" -- built out over a lagoon
Reflecting tiki torch and waxing moon;
Thatched roof and bamboo, open at the sides,
Cool flagstone floor with privacy divides,
Our table nestled at the very brink
Where koi fish watch us as we click our drink,
Or throw a frothing fit abreast our feet
When we drop sourdough gobs for them to eat.



Romantic setting for our capping night!
The more as we grow tasty-toasting tight;
Adventure not of vistas, art, or food
But of a satisfied relaxing mood.
Aye, Camb, I see you circling in the dark
Above the strike of our romantic spark --
Hawaii! And we're married twenty years,
And to a twenty more we clink our cheers --
Again the moment lifts from the vacation,
Weathervane of wider celebration,
Póem not a part of, so you fly
And pierce the private brightness cannot try.
Something still higher, there you winged wait,
But strata here of Sara's and my fate;
Tomorrow I'll rejoin you, but for now
Me and my sweetie share a strengthened vow,
Let history and commerce serve us this,
And share a well-fed, sunburned Island kiss.

--Matt

Hawaii Day Seven

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Our condo home was handsome, airy, bright:
Glass lanai doors aflood with morning light,
While wooden shutters ushered through the breeze
Together with the rustlings of palm trees.
Our white and private third-floor balcony
O'erlooked neat lawns and villas toward the sea --
The "Kiahuna Outrigger Plantation,"
Manicured and fit to its location
Fronting on the beaches of Poipu,
But backing on some pretty country too.
Indoors, we had a tidy kitchenette,
A King-size bed, and high-speed Internet!
(Alas, my laptop balked at logging on;
The final straw, my goal of blogging gone.)
Our Number 16 villa held the rear;
We missed the sound of surf, but never fear:
I ran to fetch a nothing from the car
And Kauai mountains beckoned from afar,
Green velvet biceps flexing up a frame
For hinted vistas whispering my name.

The morning brought no flag in forward force;
I was afire to be about our course,
Wherever it might be, I didn't care,
So long as I could breathe Kauaiian air,
Explore the country, greet those magic hills,
Connect somehow with all the promised thrills
I couldn't see, but sensed, as down a trail,
An invitation through a parting veil.
But Sara (smart!) took the first morning slow,
Learning the map and plotting where to go
Throughout our week -- a necessary squeeze
Between our scheduled activities
(A dinner cruise, a helicopter ride, and, last,
An evening Féte to celebrate our past.)
The first two days alone were fully free,
With all the island loop to drive and see:
Good plan to pause, although I chafed to sit,
To groom the time and make the features fit.

Outbound at last! We honored first our host,
Exploring Poipu and the Southern coast:
Drove up through meadows to Koloa town,
The sea air fresh and clean, our windows down --
No more Big Island voggy smell or haze,
Blue skies decanted purest sunny days
With clear-cut bumper clouds of snowy white
And temperate trades that kissed with cool delight
The tropic skin. And everywhere is green!
No razor lava rivers to be seen,
Just soft red dirt abloom with fertile grasses,
Verdancy from coast to mountain passes,
Forests, fields, high peaks, all deep and lush,
From tamest condo lawns to wildest bush.
The country roads were small, speed 25,
A friend to gawking round you as you drive.
Ah, Muse! The errands of our day were few;
We touristed the towns as tourists do,
And each must get a mention in my song,
But through them, run a thread of music strong,
A background soaring, firm and sweet and high,
For this enchanted emerald land, Kauai!

In search of breakfast, first we made our way
To Kalaheo, finding their café,
A local favorite, tasty, homey, cute,
And worthy of a Travelogue's repute.

Scant miles onward, tending to the West,
We found, deserted on its day of rest,
The town of Hanapepe. Silence reigned
Upon a red-dirt strip that seemed unchanged,
Its shack-like homes in picturesque decay
Preserving a Hawaiian yesterday
In stillness, heat, and woods. The shops were shut;
We walked their "swinging bridge" over the cut
(A narrow river brooding still and brown),
And bought papayas on the edge of town
From a closed shack with dollar-payment box,
Then peeled away, back to the world of clocks
And running time, a mile down the road.

From there, we hit the beach! The bright sand glowed,
And from the rim of azure waterworld
The crystal hillocks rose and rolled and curled
In crushing softness and in silky hiss
Upon the smile of beach their fulsome kiss;
The clustered palms, like asterisks on stems,
Fringed the near headlands, while, like giant gems,
The cliff-cut mountains held the faded distance.
Here, released from all adult resistance,
Straight into the booming surf we dove,
Submitting to the bliss of Nature's love,
Embraced and tumbled, as by father's arms
Whose roughhouse bundling both wins and warms,
A power universal in its sway
Expressed in perfect trust and laughing play.
All up and down the beach, real children run,
Shrieking with joy, between the surf and sun,
And at their side, the ranks of every age,
Distinctions lost of Senator or sage,
Enjoy the same experience the same
As those newly arrived to join the game.
A lesson no philosophy could teach
Embodied here: who doesn't love a beach?

The windy sky turned grey, then quickly black,
And we were subject to a squall's attack,
Chased underneath a camp-roof with a crowd
As stinging rains blew sideways, whistling loud,
Then just as quickly blew off on its way,
Trailing a misty skirt across the Bay,
And sunlight ruled as tranquil as before --
A genuine Hawaiian-style downpour.

Our map gave Salt Pond Beach a snorkel star;
It wasn't so, and, drying in the car,
We drove instead to find the "Spouting Horn,"
A lip of ledge by heaving waters torn,
Where one small blowhole, set back from the coast,
With every slugging swell shoots out a ghost
Of milky-gowned and human-walking spray
Thirty feet tall at times, fading away
With hollow howlings and great sucking sounds
As into backwash all of it rebounds.
Great fun, and tourists leaned behind the rail,
Trying their best, often to no avail,
To time the moment of the overwhelm
And get the apparition down on film.



Sun-scalded now and hungry, back we strayed,
In quest of dinner and some indoor shade,
To Poipu Shopping Village. Here my Log
Must pause to honor humble "Puka Dog,"
A mall-hole restaurant that we both adored.
The hot dog is its one and only board,
But bratty-plump and juicy, sauced with flavors
Tasty in their bright Hawaiian savors,
Lillikoi and guava-spicy relish
Filling up a meaty bun: mmm, delish!
Honor also goes to Amy there,
The counter-girl with energy to spare,
Who with her brilliant smile made us smile too,
And tipped us off to snorkel at Poipu.

But first we visited a higher station
Fór our special dinner reservation,
"Hyatt Grand Resort," just down the road.
Amid its opulence-on-overload,
Still dressed in shorts and sandals, we were seized
By a tuxedo'd usher, who was pleased
To sit us down (quite hidden from the hall)
And show us menus from the heavy, tall
And gilded book of restaurants they command.
Each offered us a different wonderland;
We picked the one most aura'd of romance,
And booked our table three days in advance.

The sun was setting, and at my beseech
We hastened from the Hyatt to the beach,
Arriving with the sun abreast the sea
And all the evening like a tapestry.
At Poipu now, in light limpid and still
That seemed with liquid gold the air to fill,
The amber sandbar cupped in by a reef
That hushed the sapphire surf to scalloped leaf,
And other swimmers quietly afloat,
With many telltale snorkel-tubes to note,
We donned our masks and slipped into the scene
As if into a travel magazine.
O contrary desires, sea or sky,
Immerse with angels or uplift the eye
To glorious immolation of the day
In purpling clouds and pink descending ray,
Or swim with Sara's limbs dimly afar,
Or stand beside her, seeing the first star?
At last a fellow snorkeler called us down
To where a turtle of the sea, dun-brown,
In tilted hover just beneath the wave
Nosed gently in and round his rocky cave,
Nor minding our attentions, lost in grace,
Weightless of fin and dignified of face,
Pursued his great slow business till the light
Diminished into underwater night
And we stood up.

That night we drank champagne
Recumbent on our lanai, in a rain,
Almost, of starshine from the dizzied crush
Of galaxies above, as island-lush
Across the vault of moonless ocean sky
As emerald is below upon Kauai.


--Matt

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

Hawaii Day Three

(Switching to prose for efficiency's sake; I haven't had anywhere near as much free time to write as I thought I would! There's also been the amusing saga of trying to find a working internet connection on the Kona Coast. All in all call it a "noble experiment." Back to straight diary.)

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For Day Three we were our own guides, and didn't fare nearly as well. We took our rental car and drove off to explore South Kona, in search of (1) a sandy beach, and (2) Kealakekua Bay, supposedly a great snorkeling destination. We didn't find either. The main road angled at once up the mountainside and settled in a thousand feet above the water; individual roads trickled beachward without posted signs of any kind. We submitted to the whims of the travel gods, though, and wound up having an entertaining day.

First, it was enlightening just driving in Hawaii. The main road through Kona gets very narrow and winding, and the region has a rural poverty within a kind of scratch jungle. The ubiquitous black lava rocks front the road, which is then overhung with rioting fronds, vines, walking root systems -- an impenetrable tangle. Several little coffee farms thrust handwritten signs out of hidden dirt driveways, inviting us in for tastings (Kona Coffee is the wine of this region). On our right the occasional break in the greenery offered aerial footage of the island coast far below, a dust-brown shovel meeting the misty blue.

Contrary to its image, Hawaiian weather is not all sun. A perpetual cloudlid smothers the mountaintop, thick and grey and blurred smooth by "vog," the toxic gas released from the volcano; the mornings are sunny on the coast, but by midday the vogbank creeps overhead, and rain was commencing as we drove on. The vog has a certain smell that, coming and going, accompanied us throughout our stay in Kona.

We did finally find a turnoff marked Kealakekua Bay, but partway down we veered off to follow another sign for the "painted church," an attraction we'd heard about. This proved primtive and somewhat sad, and we never did get back on the road to Kealakekua. Instead, we gave a lift to a native Hawaiian whose car had broken down in the church parkinglot; he directed us on a different road to the highway, where he got out to hitch, and pointed us on a route to our bay that proved all wrong. For a while we were following a single-lane unpainted road straight through the blasted lava field near the coast; after luring us for miles it turned back uphill; we backtracked; and finally by slipping through a tiny Public Access driveway near a State Park we came out at the coast. We thought this was Kealakekua Bay, but we discovered later that it was Honaunau. Still, we parked, offloaded towels and beach bag, and I went snorkeling.

This wasn't a "beach" per se; there was no sand, just a leopard-print of black ledges and tidepools out to the fretting surf; still, it was a popular hangout, with people swimming, sunning on the rocks, and generally hanging out. As it was raining, it wasn't a great day for sunbathing, and with the surf on the sharp rocks it wasn't the best location for me to practice snorkeling for the first time. Still, Sara gamely sat down and filled her sketchbook with speed-sketches of beach people, and I plunged in and made a go of it. I seemed to get the gist pretty quickly, and saw some pretty tropical fish, and climbed successfully out on the rocks to discover that I'd grown several bleeding scrapes on my legs and an unknown spine in my heel. Three young girls were practicing their ukeleles as I walked back to Sara through the tidepools, and I felt initiated into Hawaii.

From there we continued back toward Kailua, our town, in search of a sand beach, and we still didn't find it, but we wound up for lunch at a luxury resort whose restaurant terrace overlooked a vast kept tidepool. The tidepool boasted a wealth of undersea activity, clearly visible from our table at the rail above: five sea turtles lounged in a pile on a ledge, like a bunch of stone salad bowls thrown together, with fins; there were more tropical fish, and a flounder.

And that was the extent of our adventuring for the day. The way we saw it, we'd be staying on a sand beach on Kauai, so we figured the Big Island was trying to show us what it had to offer. We appreciated it.


--Matt