Ka‘ena Point

Some things you must learn
how to see: how to scan the horizon
for black skins that sparkle as jewels,

facets slick in seawater and sunlight.
You have always been jumping
from this world into the orchestra

underneath. After learning to see
you cannot stop singing, you sweep
the blue rhumb line for plumes of dust-like

spray. Leap into mist. The swells froth
and erode stone. What keeps its shape
perched on the altar of time’s temple?

Today a sheerwater nests
in the mountain’s pores, tomorrow
the calcium shell of your skeleton

leeches back into the coral.
A puff of spume and your body breaches
at the point of jumping off. Look up.

Look. The rock is ground into sand.
What around you is not music?

Read more from Issue No. 8 or share on Twitter.