Textures

When the tide is out

Up in cow country

Monday, we went up to visit some friends in Waimea, which is cow country on the Big Island. And this was the view from their back window.

Aloha!

Whales and cocktails

The little dark arch in the middle is a whale.

On the beach at Punalu'u

At the south end of the beach.

On our way up to the lava field.

Up top.

The pond at Punalu'uv

Sea turtles

In Na'alehu

Here we are at the Hana Hou restaurant in Na'alehu. This restaurant is known for two things: its pie and the fact that it's the southernmost restaurant in the United States.

When we came for lunch a couple of years ago, we didn't leave room for dessert! This year, we planned ahead and shared slices of macacamia nut cream and banana cream pies.

Our little island lunch guest

Happy Poetry Month!

It's April already, even if we had snow this morning.

I know I've been a little silent, but I'm back online after my vacation, and my first order of business: Pictures!

Some pics from our island weekend

Poetry on the road

I've been trying to figure out how to combine poetry and travel. Wouldn't it be great to stop in at a reading or two while on vacation? Experience some of the local poetry scene?

Few of my journeys have a literary theme. It's either pure vacation or it's a furniture junket (my attempt to help my husband sell his work). But, because these are pretty much the only times I get out of town, I'd like to mix in a little poetry.

Sounds easy, right?

I tried searching online for local readings, but I came up empty. This leads me to think that either other places don't have nearly the poetry activity that I find in the greater Seattle area, or I'm not approaching it the right way.

I thought about checking the local papers online ahead of time. And now that seems like a totally obvious tactic.

Any other ideas? How do you connect with poetry in other places?

Postcards

Tomorrow morning well before dawn we leave for Hawaii. I'm looking forward to some sun and sand and fish. In between adventures, I'm hoping to relax and read and spend some time with my long project.

I'm not a very good traveler, but I like being places and I like writing about them—not that I'm necessarily successful. It's good practice and a good way for me to reflect on my experiences and surroundings. But it makes me wonder about the difference between a travel poem and a place poem—or is there a difference?

I guess I'm thinking of the travel poem as being about the place and the place poem being about something more. If none of this is coherent, I should probably go finish packing.

In 2007 Poet's Market, the entry for the journal Kaimana: Literary Arts Hawaii notes: "Hawaii gets a lot of 'travelling regionalists,' visiting writers with inevitably superficial observations." Fair enough—and that's the bar that I'm trying to transcend.

In the meantime, for whatever postcard respite it can provide, here is a poem from a previous trip.

False Bloom


Bougainvillea clouds the hillside
in flocks of purple, orange or red.
Its papery leaves mimic true blooms,
the throats of hibiscus,
the fragrant plumeria.

The bougainvillea, guest from Brazil,
grows by the name pukanwila,
shows rampant on roadsides
by old lava flows and pale grass—
hard to tell what doesn't belong.

I would be a visitor here
even if I put down shallow roots
and spoke of local plants
in a new tongue,
learned another language for time.

I would need a strong anchor
when the trade winds blow,
good reason to stay as a stranger.