by Alfred Fournier

First Walk in Hilo

Because I do not hope ever to find my way again
to this late spring among the banyan trees
beside the turquoise sea, waves softly breaking
over black volcanic stone, you reaching simply
for my hand or lighting up with a laugh, posing
for a shot with a tilt of your pink hat. Imagine that:
us, here, now, as if we could be young again
with the wildness of love as only the young know.
And when I turn, about to say I love you, here, now,
not like before, but in a deep and peaceful way,
and the South Pacific light dances across your face
and just then the call of a bird we’ve never seen—
black and red with flashes of white in his wings—
draws our eyes into the high branches above
the slow steps of our feet, into green leaves
and heaven beyond, the bird suddenly obscured,
the moment quickly gone, and your hand in mine
gives a squeeze of delight and we stroll on
toward evening and whatever night will bring,
a panoply of stars above the tiny green island of us,
floating, contented, on a vast and lonely sea.

After W.S. Merwin’s Variations to the Accompaniment of a Cloud

***

Skimmin’

is there anything more pleasing?
flat smoothness rubbed
between fingers of the throwing hand

a chorus of crickets and frogs
in fading orange dusk
surface of the pond like black glass

deep breath in then a flick
of the wrist—counting the skips
each shorter than the last

never wondering
until all these years later
what magic makes stones fly

or how deep
and what lived beneath
the surface of that calm black water

***

Saw You Dancing to the Beatles Once

when Dad wasn’t looking,
aproned in the kitchen
rocking to the beat.
Swirling as you turned
from the cabinet to the fridge,
stirring batter enough for eight.
Can’t Buy Me Love, I think it was,
with its jazzy rhythm punch,
or maybe Eight Days a Week.
A song you weren’t supposed to love,
made for kids and teens
by long-haired freaks,
Dad would say, but your hips
were swaying anyway
to harmony over radio waves,
alive inside this wild sound
that made you want to leap
across the floor,
take him by the hand,
make him understand
there is no age limit for play.

Photo by Paul Blenkhorn on Unsplash