Pages are falling,
and I’m always replacing.
They never look just right.
I’m haunted by red bougainvillea
blooming
along the King Kamehameha Highway
so thick the road crews
hack it down with chainsaws,
and still the seeds
hurl themselves
into a sliver of dirt
and catch fire in the sunset.
I’ll flip another page and find a field
of abandoned sugar cane.
Anything can grow here.
Remaining is hard.
Two hundred words for rain in Hawaii—
rain that causes creeks to flow up
the Ko’olau mountains,
and rain that tells fishermen
it’s time to haul in their nets.
