Kalaheo Pocket Valley

SUBHEAD: A poem about living in a small wet valley on the southside of Kauai  

By Jonathan Jay on 9 January 2009 for Island Breath  
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2009/01/kauai-southside-valley.html)

 


Image above: a 2006 view of the moon and Venus.

The body of Luna Hoaka glows faintly in our pacific earthshine while below, her creamy melon flesh crescent cheshire grin bobs.Gondola moon ploughs through clouds under beaming venus, to sink slowly into branches along western jellied ridge wallof my Kalaheo pocket valley.

In my pocket valley, three weeks now Makahiki rains resounding falling popcorn acoustics splatter-chatter pounding! Each rain drop sizzling - fissile into myriad rivulets that cascade off my wet tin roof congregating into pummeled soils, squishingly past saturation - thickly.

Deeply.

Now unnamed Lauoho intermittent stream first begins to flow, then boil - but i can't hear it under the pounding of my corrugated drumskin.Silently to me it roils through jungle past banyan over ford, past yurt, through citrus grove pushing piles of freshly fallen jungle debris.

Pools rise amongst the feet of drunken banana trees en route to Lawai.

 Two warm, dry, freshly fed cats recline at my bare feet as i write this. He is fat and happy - she is small and insistent - a tiny tank for love.Now Imua in my lap. Now Imua bat-bat-bat my toes.Now Moku chew my heel. Now Moku velvet nose.Soon they will chase and tackle, then growl and rumble, then tongue and drift to sleep.

Sibling playmates their entire lives - do they miss their middle sister, Amanda? She the black-bearded pirate girl, she with freckles on her nose, She the cleverest one whom first figured out the door,She who now sleeps beneath tumbling stream.

Can cats remember their kittened days? Shoyu melts into butter; outside the pounding staccato slows, easing like one ocean liner slips im-per-cep-tab-ly into berth. Creaking now like one stubborn old house through bitter mid-winters, but here in my pocket valley, the 30th of December brings 70 degrees and a fierce sponge-bath from the cloudy skies of Kalaheo.

Now i finally hear the rustle of Lauoho `A`alu (Leaf-head stream) my own private flash flood writhes through the Kalaheo pocket valley. It only took twenty inches for one Mahina to prime the pump. The Garden Island, lime and starfruit prunings crackle in the breadbox woodstove - a little dry heat a bump to nudge back the mouldering fungal damp.

Tiny red lights like incence tips from my several power strips softly peer. Tonight is a special night! - the battered Trojan 105's behold buzz: electricity!

A miracle for my fragile solar system, even more fantastic from the month of rain.Too precious for mere illumination, shall i celebrate by with music, laptop, movie? Mahalo ke Akua loa for allowing me to be in this small part of the world.

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