A poem for Maui

Written in response to a call from Cindy here, for poems to help Maui:

I know your shores, Hawaii.

I have seen your dramatic green:

Unfurling in the dark as a fiddlehead,

Waiting to be plucked at the entrance

To a tube, now cooled, for tourists

To enter the heart of you.

And your green, where it dominates the ocean,

Looming over the blue,

Protective and strong,

Unflinching as the sea slaps you for attention,

Washing the rocks and reminding you

Of its presence, like a grasping toddler,

Insistent and stubborn.

I have walked the rippled, rucked ground

Of cold lava fields and

Scaled your heights to see the clouds

Unfurl below, over the landscape,

Rolling inexorably in to enfold

The land and your people.

I have shared in your wonders -

Beaches of black, beaten by surf,

Turtles resting,

Surprising you on the sand,

Perched next to white stones, placed,

Brightly saying "Aloha!"

And your skies! Pricked with stars,

Dashed with comets - a sight that wowed me!

Open-mouthed wonder, I was like a child

Seeing night for the first time,

Like it was veiled, shielded from me,

Waiting for its moment to be revealed.

***

And now, that sky, it is veiled again.

Night is watching the islands through a haze,

The stars blinking at a scene

Black, red, angry.

Hawaii is burning.

Maui is burning.

I feel the hurt from here;

Scenes of grey, charred rubble

And the contorted shapes of cars,

Hollowed out.

Families' footsteps in their homes,

Roofless, wall-less, formless.

"This is where the kitchen was."

Hills now the backdrop to carnage

And woe,

And relentless, hopeful searching.

***

Blurred footage from phones

Of people escaping with only their souls,

Leaving their material lives behind.

An inert figure at the roadside, slumped -

"We have to leave her! We need to get out of here!"

The car goes by, driven by survival instinct.

Panic!

Tears.

Loss.

***

I saw an Hawaiian interviewed:

He did not know where his brother was.

The fire was fast and hungry.

The man hoped, he said, "it was fast."

He was not talking about the fire.

He did not know where his brother was.

***

I feel the hurt from here,

Many miles away.

The decimation, the loss.

I want to help,

To be there for you

But I will not visit you.

It feels wrong.

It is not our time to meet again

But I want you to know

That the world watches,

Like the sky at night

And we care

And we share your grief

And we will help.

We will support your healing in

Whatever way we can,

Our goodwill waves reaching across the water

Lapping your green shores;

Travelling to soothe and support you.

It is a small thing, I offer, we offer,

But I hope, like a balm,

It will help with the healing.

Let's help them.

And check out other writers here:

Help, if you can.