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I got up late this morning and stumbled through my
ablutions,
then staggered to the kitchen for my coffee.
Fortunately I had not finished last night's pot,
so there was enough caffine to microwave a fast shot.
I turned toward the window to rinse my cup
(the sink window looks mauka)
and there was Mauna Kea,
as if she had just been created and pulled glowing from the kiln.
The sky behind was an opalescent mist,
not blue or grey,
but some color that perhaps is not yet invented,
or was forgotten when the world was young.
A physicist or optometrist would explain how the
intensity of the colors caused an apparant vibration of light and the
brightness caused my iris to dilate and contract, making the image on my
retina to grow and shrink slightly. But I saw her breathe.
I forget,
sometimes,
in the lushness of this place
with it's obvious moist fertility and growth,
that creative forces continue in the sere as well as soggy.
Even the ongoing eruption,
what with its magma and burning rivers,
is more reminiscent of rainforest than desert.
I
saw
Mauna Kea
this morning,
her vastness
spreading across my horizon in undulating,
rippling,
glowing bands of red
silent
but singing a song that vibrated my being
as if I was a guitar string in a sympathetic tuning
I must learn the words.
2001, D. Leilehua Yuen
Previously unpublished |