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  • another poem

    Daybreak

     

    On
    the tidal mud, just before sunset,

    dozens
    of starfish

    were
    creeping.  It was

    as
    though the mud were a sky

    and
    enormous, imperfect stars

    moved
    across it slowly

    as
    the actual stars cross heaven.

    All
    at once they stopped,

    and
    as if they had simply

    increased
    their receptivity

    to
    gravity they sank down

    into
    the mud; they faded down

    into
    it and lay still; and by the time

    pink
    of sunset broke across them

    they
    were as invisible

    as
    the true stars at daybreak.

     

                   
    -- Galway Kinnell

    i'm going to get back to writing poems, just need a jumpstart, i guess.

  • some poems on a quiet evening

    Wild
    Geese

     

    You
    do not have to be good

    You
    do not have to walk on your knees

    for a
    hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

    You
    only have to let the soft animal of your body

       
    love what it loves.

    Tell
    me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

    Meanwhile,
    the world goes on.

    Meanwhile,
    the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

    are
    moving across the landscapes,

    over
    the prairies and the deep trees,

    the
    mountains and the rivers.

    Meanwhile,
    the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

    are
    heading home again.

    Whoever
    you are, no matter how lonely,

    the
    world offers itself to your imagination,

    calls
    to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

    over
    and over announcing your place

    in
    the family of things.

     

       
                   
            --Mary
    Oliver

    Two
    Horses

     

       
        I thought the sun breaking through Sangre de
    Cristo

    Mountains
    was enough, and that

       
                   
                   
            wild musky scents on my body
    after

       
        long nights of dreaming would

       
                   
                   
            unfold me to myself.

       
        I thought my dance alone through worlds of

    odd
    and eccentric planets that no one else knew

          
    would sustain me, I mean

       
                   
                   
        I did learn to move

       
                   
                   
                   
            after all

       
    and how to recognize voices other than the most familiar.

       
        But you must have grown out of

       
                   
                   
        a thousand years dreaming

       
            just like I could never imagine
    you.

       
                You must
    have

       
                   
                   
    broke open from another day

    to
    here, because

       
                now I see you as a part
    of the millions of

       
    other universes that I thought could never occur

       
        in this breathing.

       
                    And
    I know you as myself, traveling.

    In
    your eyes alone are many colonies of stars

       
                   
                   
                and other circling
    planet motion.

       
                   
        And then your fingers, the sweet smell

       
                   
            of hair, and

       
                   
                   
            your soft, tight belly.

       
        My heart is taken by you

       
                and these mornings
    since I am a horse running towards

    a
    cracked sky where there are countless dawns

       
                   
            breaking simultaneously,

    There
    are two moons on the horizon

    and
    for you

       
                I have broken
    loose.

     

       
                   
                   
            - Joy Harjo

  • ok, i'm not dead, just very lazy.  went for a ride over the pali today, which was a bit scary, since i was on my new (used) triathlon bike, which is basically like a sail in a cross wind, and doesn't have the most confidence-inducing brake levers.  also still waiting to hear about hematology-oncology fellowship interviews.  for the sake of my ego, i just want to get at least a couple of interviews, even if i don't end up getting a position.  but i can't do much except wait.

    more later.

  • just a poem

    of course
    i would like
    a sky full of explosions
    the world spinning in wonderment and celebration
    but i would rather
    hold on
    to the smallest flower
    almost to a memory of a fragrance
    to nurture
    guarding it with my life against the storms
    in the kipuka of a new flow
    waiting patiently for rain
    as the soil fills the fissures
    the flower grows

  • where i live now (i sleep on the living room floor), the backyard is overgrown with 'ohe (bamboo), but used to be covered in bananas.  there's a stream back there, which only runs with the rain, but being on the windward side, it rains plenty.  i think that the windward side has been inhabited for a long time (although i am sure that there will be arguments from wai'anae), and that there are many memories here.  who this next poem is written for, i'm not exactly sure, but it is here . . .

    the night is alive in a chorus of sounds
    birds unseen in the day
    a stream struggling to live
    rustling of bamboo through thousands of green fingers
    feeling the whisper of ta matani
    the night remembers
    millions of other nights

    soft, slowing sighs into the infinite
    snoring breaking into the rhythm of apnea
    screams of loss
    loss of the fullness of life
    or the celebratory loss of self
    in the seconds of we
    even, quiet breathing
    of contentment
    echo the steps of na tupuna
    watching the world slowly
    the night waits for us
    the easing of the body
    at the end of long days of struggle and joy
    hoi i ta poli o te aloha
    or sometimes
    small fires
    as the air becomes damp
    and cool
    and the fires
    smolder and spark
    leap and crackle
    and the air glistens
    night turns to day
    ones to turn all
    and the sighs
    and waits again
    for us


    i guess that i should give explanations for some of my poems.  when i write hawaiian phrases, i tend to use "t" instead of "k," because the us of "k" vs "t", "l" vs "r", "p" vs "b" was another missionary invention.  although it might be apocryphal, the missionaries could not understand all the dialects of hawaiian, so they sought to impose their order, particularly to reduce the language (linguistic term) to the written.  so there was a "vote" taken, and k, l, and p came out.  "s" probably vanished around that time as well.  for the same reason, i don't always use the ', which is properly the 'okina, a consonant, becuase although a part of our alphabet, in the days when everyone spoke hawaiian, it was understood, as was the kahako, or macron.  a tupuna (elder) from kau helped name my daughter
    , and so her name has all "t," and so i choose t.  matani is wind.

  • is anyone out there?

     i guess that i'm just in one of those moods today.  wondering whether anyone actually reads my page anymore.  if not, it's cool, i suppose that it's mostly for myself.  anyway, that's it for right now.

  • monday

    just some stuff that is starting to flow out.  i think that i am really trying to work on forgiveness, and compassion.  but sometimes, there is not much left when it is a unilateral exchange.

    writing so much about water
    but being so far away from it, at least in the physicality
    of not drinking enough
    or not swimming enough
    not drowning enough
    or at least losing enough
    but enough has been lost
    drifting shadows under the freezing gray liquidity
    i want to set the seething mirror on fire
    and dive in
    skin crisps and peels off in sheets
    collect the floating clouds of ash
    and with a breath
    leap from the surface
    scatter the ashes to plant haloa
    and ku
    lono
    and call kane and kanaloa
    to green the world again

    Telephone Booth #905
    ½

     

    Woke up this
    morning

    feeling
    excellent,

    picked up the
    telephone

    dialed the number
    of

    my equal opportunity
    employer

    to inform him I will
    not

    be in to work
    today.

    “Are you feeling
    sick?”

    the boss asked
    me

    “No Sir,” I
    replied:

    “I am feeling too
    good

    to report to work
    today.

    If I feel sick
    tomorrow

    I will come in
    early!”

     

                      
    -- Pedro Pietri

  • saturday am

    3 am on a saturday, and the rain pour down, running the waterfall behind where i am staying right now.   just looking for a new place today.  i also traded in my old car (acura rdx, too big and too much of a gas hog) for a honda fit.  it's more my size, and enough for my daughter and me.  otherwise, not too much this weekend, just a friend's birthday party tonight, and then back to work on monday.

  • aftermath

    24.9.07

     

    Millions of tiny claws

    Pull one away

    With a bit of flesh

    Another digs in

    Trying and sometimes flailing

    Away at

    Maybe not even hatred

    Just pathos and disgust

    Thousands of dollars

    And hundreds of hours

    Not even ending in frustration

    And the overwhelming emptiness

    Symbiotic with the claws

    Pulling down and tearing apart

    Inside

    Throughout all the corners

    Brushing away the cobwebs

    And struggling with the steel gates

    Questing for empathy

    And waiting for remorse

    Trying to push down the scales

    So that kindness feels the pull of gravity

    More than justice

    Somehow

    Day by day

    Darkness becomes gray

    The grip of the claws eases

    Or so I hope

     

    i am struggling after settling the custody litigation.  i pray that what the judge says is correct, that i made a decision that is in the best interest of my daughter, but to be honest, i feel that i should have sought justice instead.  i don't really know what to do, except to try and process and see what happens.

  • friday

    Follow
    one word, back

    “Mai”
    Come.

    from
    Hawai`i

    Back
    across the wide green water

    all
    the way to Indonesia . . . “Mai”

    Means,
    “Come” in Bahasa Bali, the old tongue

    Think
    of them leaving

    Men
    and women on boats laid low with pigs,

    Coconut,
    yams, tapioca, taro root, a pregnant dog.

    The
    last real Indonesian on the way to becoming

    The
    first Hawaiian.

    By
    what river crossing?

    Stopping
    along the way to become Maori, Pilipino, Samoan, Fijian,

             
    Tahitian . . . .

    Who
    cartered them with bamboo maps to Easter Island?

    They
    took Gods, Goddesses, seeds and pottery which breaks,

    And
    is found in pieces two thousand years later,

    Like
    clay postcards.

    This
    baby has no English yet.

    “Mai”
    he sings, sweeping a fat hand toward his heart.

    “Come,
    come to me.”

    Follow
    one word forward,

    Follow
    one forward from each new child who speaks.

     

             
             
             
             
    -- Robin Lim