Saturday commute xc: bad proceedings on shore

Koloa felt some of the

aftershock that turned

Honolulu and Lahaina in-

to places of decadence,

but it was no overwhel-

ming problem on Kauai.

Dr James W. Smith noted

in his journal in April,

1865, Three whaleships

here at anchor & bad

proceedings expected on

shore. But if bad pro-

ceedings took place,

they could not have 

been too glaring, since

Smith made no mention

of them in later entries.

We can all point to more

than one pandemic which

has been propagated by

discretion in the prac-

tice of medicine. On the

other hand, none of us,

immersed in the great Age

of Indiscretion as we are,

would welcome a breach of

confidentiality from the

caretakers of our woes.

An island - and sometimes

the smaller, the better -

will always seem to be

that grant of confidence

in space, that Dr Smith's

journal was in comment. 

This is renewal as even

the confessional under-

stands it. Homeland se-
curity, if you like. I 
love Kauai for many rea-
sons. It returns to one, 
whenever it's recalled.

Edward Joesting

Kauai

  The Separate Kingdom

University of Hawaii Press, 1984©

What to do when the catamarans have passed

    if you have

    to ask, you

    don't sail.

The papers are full of talk of "no negotiations taking place"

      That's like poor

      Wolfgang Pauli's

      imagining a par-

      ticle beyond de-

      tection. The act

      of physics is in-

      terminably redis-

      tributive. Even-

      tually we notice

      and think it was

      our own idea.

 

The report of St Mark

        As he were a tree,

        walking, with what

        should he collide?

Gulping Dickens in my youth

   I used - very reasonably,

   I think - to surmise that

   all injustice could well

   be laid at the door of a

   harsh and anxious break-

   fast.

   A symptom confused as a

   cause, I grant you. But

   it was time to be invad-

   ed by the light of day.

  

   And, you know, all those

   knowing chuckles of our

   later schoolboy years,

   never meant we disbeliev-

   ed in breakfast.

   They meant we'd seen our

   parity; and they showed

   us that our appetite at 

   morning preserved us in

   the scale of every life,

   even as our feeding nev-

   er could. To be happy to

   be hungry, is a paradox

   that stings one still in

   Dickens.

I asked my bookseller what to read without a government

I did, but I asked her

also why she didn't of-

fer valet parking, so

buried is her shop in

a cobbled mews. Admit-

tedly, I was not of a

mood to be realistic,

so fine was the day.

And I was lucky in my

choice.

     Pierced to the deep rock

     with noon sunlight,

     Fisher Pond

     by nightfall lies

     under a starless sky

     opaque. At their fire

     the lovers want

     what might be theirs,

     if only ... Who,

     the hoot owl calls,

     and later, You,

     he seems to say.

     You, and the fog drifts

     into the campfire.

Brooks Haxton

They Lift their

  Wings to Cry

  Poems

Blue Mountain

Alfred A. Knopf, 2008©

Just another outing in the sun

  Just another fugitive,

  just another shadow 

  trailing callouses.