Each falls had individuality
But mainly as a window-frame to see
The different lives different Hawaiians led
Across the varied Hilo watershed.
1
The first was nestled right within the town,
A local feature with a wide renown;
Bused flocks of Japanese were smiling there
But, coming to it, one was more aware
Of Hilo's little streets and boxy homes,
All balanced on the lava's dips and domes
(Though to the eye, lush woods and lawns appear,
No leveling of earth can happen here).
Each house hode high on variegated stilts,
Accomodating to the fastened tilits,
Cheap houses with the shallow-angled roofs,
Big Government-style schools -- old hubris proofs
Of anchoring a nation to the crust
And scaring up a poor domestic trust.
2
Along a narrow road, we played the rube
And clicked a trickle from a lava tube.
The foliage was thick and polyglot,
The wood bridge reeked of tar, the sun was hot.
3
Akaka Falls -- a tourist destination;
Parking lot and tongues from every nation,
Herded down a stairway with a rail
That passes for a secret jungle trail
To pause upon a landing overlook
And view the scene you saw in the guidebook.
The falls itself seemed preening, across space,
Before the cameras passing it apace,
Turning its queenly ribbon like a train
The likes of which you'd never see again.
4
Joe's tour turned local; we began to rove
To private lands. First, a banana grove!
We rode a grassy track and parked for lunch
Amid a stunted orchard where each bunch
Was bagged and tied off podlike up above.
A falls was near -- who cares? I fell in love
With the vast inland grasslands, rolling high
In sussurating silence 'neath the sky
To the blue smudge of mountains. Handcut roads
With far-off flatbed trucks waiting their loads
Serviced the empty empire of food --
Hawaii in an old plantation mood.
Here in the orchard, man-size leaf-fronds made
A green-brown lace of slowly twitching shade;
The long banana aisles held the trash
Of dead leaves, trunk stumps and machete slash.
No freebies here, but Joe cut sugar cane;
We sucked it for dessert, drove on again.
(Oh, just in case this wasn't yet bizarre,
At lunch Joe pulled his bagpipes from the car,
An for a while the tropic afternoon
Resounded to the skirling Highland tune.
5
The last was best: finally we got to swim!
A steep dirt road came level at the brim
Of an enchanted deep-green sunken lake.
High on the other side, twin jets did break
And side by side plunge near a hundred feet
Down the sheer cliff that walled off the retreat.
And O, the shock and joy of getting wet,
Cleansing the hot day's mileage and sweat!
The three of us swam happy and alone,
Floating the deep or leaping from the stone
That offered lumpy platforms on one side.
Of course I set my sights, and gamely tried,
To swim beneath the falls. Easily broached,
The task turned serious as I approached,
Fighting the chop and spray with mighty strain
As if against a pocket hurricane
To face a huge continuing explosion,
Hammer of this fathomless erosion,
Inches from my nose. I lost my nerve
And, treading water, figured it would serve
To simply hold my arm beneath the blast:
I felt the skyborne pistons punching fast,
Bruising my underarm but sweetly warm,
Driving it down into the foaming storm.
I slipped "between" the bombings, Sara too,
And pressed to the cold cave wall we looked back through
The darkly backlit arcs of falling spray --
The triumph of our waterfalling day.
The long road back; two other tour guides drove,
Both charming, as was Joe, and like him strove
To entertain their charge with endless chat.
The strange result was, when at last we sat
Exhausted at the hotel bar, we found,
Lifting our Mai Tais in the ceaseless sound
Of surf, and staring at the ruby sun
Kissing the waves to end our day of fun
With warm caresses of the evening weather --
Only now could we converse together!
--Matt
(scroll down for the original prose version of the ending)
For the record, the fifth and final waterfall of our tour was the best, because we finally got to swim! This was also on private land, accessible by a steeply-descending dirt road that leveled out right at the grassy edge of a perfect sunken lake. The other side was walled in by a sheer cliff, with TWO waterfalls jetting out at the top, falling side by side a good hundred feet It was a wise decision to put this one last in the tour after the long hot day in the car, because swimming immediately washed it all away and left a joyful aftertaste.
Of course I had to try swimming under the falls, but what seemed a romantic photo opportunity from afar turned serious as I swam closer: I had to fight against a miniature hurricane and fierce current even to get close, and then I was staring at something like an ongoing explosion in front of me. I had sudden images of firehoses turned on protestors in the south and didn't care to sample the experience. So I went "between" the two explosions and got behind, where in the cold wind against the wet rock I had a great view of the two falls arcing over me.
Joe handed us off to a fellow tour guide and his wife for the drive back (Brandy and Oleathia; Brandy being the male); Brandy was just as talkative as Joe, but in a more joky vein, and the odd part of the day was that Sara and I experienced all this without really having a moment to talk amongst ourselves the whole time. We caught up in a rush back at the hotel bar, with a Mai Tai and a huge Africanesque sun flattening its rubicund sphere through bands of clouds to the watery horizon.
Posts
