Resting in lucent waters, two ships with wrenched rigging
and ropes frayed churn in paint. Between the sterns
of the Resolution and Discovery, Maunakea rises
from Kealakekeua Bay. Thin oiled Union Jacks flap.
The bows point to broad black sand beaches where
trivial waves roll out, in. A light-unified vista
of pigmented plumeria, orchids, hibiscus, bamboo.
A nearly full moon west in fading daylight.
A flock of gulls in cool color circles. On the beach,
Hiki’au Heiau paved with lava rocks. Wood statues
around the heiau assemble a pantheon of gods and chiefs.
Atop bamboo poles, twenty skulls smirk for a setting sun.
Kneeling on the beach, men in loincloths. Chiefs in green feathers.
Younger women wear pa’u, older ones shawls. Islanders just off the beach
call out across the water aboard a fleet of canoes: “Lono, Lono, Lono.”
They part allowing Cook’s tender access to the shore’s ominous fascination.
The advent of their god: men in British uniforms, guns armed with gunpower.
From the side of Maunakea, billowing blue smoke crowds beachward.
Around the anchored ships, darkening doubt saturates the waters.
A few hundred yards from Discovery’s starboard, six islanders,
disinterested in Lono’s arrival, swim toward a distant shoreline
with a British pinnace they want for its transport and metal parts.
On Resolution’s portside, a canoe floats empty.
Two sailors lift a woman wrapped in rope onto the deck.
Norman Unrau. After teaching at Goddard College for several years and then at high schools in the San Francisco Bay Area, Norman Unrau completed his doctorate at UC, Berkeley and began teaching at California State University, Los Angeles. After retiring from CSULA, he settled in the Bay Area to write and support the work of other poets. His work has been published in The Goddard Journal, The Pacific Review, The Main Street Rag, and elsewhere.