Hilo Dawn

image by glenn buttkus

Hilo Dawn

That first morning on the ragged cusp
of the Clay Ranch, we were awakened
with the sun bursting through the bamboo shutters,
papaya-orange across a violent green yard,
past soldier-rows of eucalyptus and leche nut trees,
an ocean cross-breeze cooling us after
the swelter of tropical slumber
during our virginal evening
in that stilted brown bungalow
near Akakia Falls.

What rousted us initially was not
the eastern Hawaiian orb rising hot
out of a steaming aqua sea, shamelessly
smearing the coastal cumulus
with a brash morning thrust, no,
it was a pure Copeland composition
thick on the wind, three roosters heralding,
joined by wild turkeys roosting low
on the branches of the gray-green trees
lining the country lane, challenged by
two flocks of tame peacocks roaming
the high grassy fields between us
and a large ranch house,
with mossy weathered fence posts,
angus cattle, and sleek horses
in paddocks, corrals, and pens
parallel to a vociferous river plunging fast
through palms and koa, dressed
in twenty hues of yellow, green, and ochre,
nestled at the base of a snow capped volcano,
dotted with the silver buttons
of several observatories.

I sat in a reed chair on the enclosed front porch
peering excitedly over a red railing, talking
to a male peacock perched presumptuously
on the half gate at the top of the stairs,
sipping Chinese tea, staring wide-eyed at the Pacific,
with my maps and notes spread out beside me
on a forest green folding table, meticulously
planning our week on the big island;

ready with our Jeep Liberty to scale all 13, 796 feet
of Mauna Kea, riding the saddle road between coasts,
with the plumpness of Mauna Loa below us,
lush with coffee plantations on its burly withers;
ready to swing joyfully over the top
past majestic waterfalls and botanical gardens,
to pause high above the sacred Waipio Valley,
dotted patchwork with taro farm ponds
and many rivers flowing madly midst
the deep mysteries of hidden forest and jungle canopies
with wild horses galloping fleet across the floor
of flowered meadows, all crashing headlong
into the towering waves beating the beaches
along the bay--ready to greet the dark throngs
of cattle at Waimea, where the wild west married
the island gods, breeding fat black cattle,
among Arabians and Mustangs, with palominos
dancing in every corral; ready to lumber breathlessly
over the shoulders of the slumbering giant Mahukona,
to sigh at the sight of Maui off Upolu Point, looming
large like a rogue mauna that had broken away
from the northern shore, sliding down to the tranquility
of the village at Hawi for our Kauhola anniversary dinner;
ready to swing hard due south to witness first hand
the caustic and dangerous plume of volcanic steam
venting out of Pelle’s orifice, the Kilauea Caldron,
with a sea of magma pulsating beneath,
to wander as strangers struggling across the moonscape
of lava flows, noting the abstract art of the shapes
frozen in pumice and stone--ready to bounce
over the washboard ruts out to the lighthouse
at Cape Kumukahi, pausing hungrily to purchase
huli-huli chicken broiling fetchingly in a local’s yard,
to stand neath the beacon on that black lava expanse
at the back of the Jeep pulling apart that delicious capon
and devouring it whole as we stood sticky-fingered
staring at sea turtles beached and napping
on an ebon blanket and swimming
within the jagged teeth of black grottos--
ready to respond to the sirens of the surf,
ready to revel in the playground of the mountain gods,
ready for the honeymoon we never had time to take,
ready for the howling and the luau of love.

Glenn Buttkus

April 2011
Repost September 2014

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics 

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