ʻOlepau

This distance between us is growing
This first day of August clearly saying
Here I am look around just let yesterday
Try pushing past with its just one more
Thought let balance find its way all over
Again and again and a single spider
Suspends herself between arica palm
Legs and purple leaf vitex spray beneath
That strand of silk Haleakala smiles
In a lei of slow moving clouds we’re all
In suspense it’s over this season my Irish
Ancestors called Beltane fun as it was
Watching all those hot-blooded young
Women leaping around the tent on the mountain
The next day I planted half a dozen lavenders
The smell of peace still on my fingertips
It’s the waxing gibbous moon called ‘olepau
Whispering now’s the time for planting ulu
Or string beans I take this to include lavender
Movement is good what’s not moving
I ask you the time for planting sadness
With its scent of dust is past besides this
Isn’t just another orbit in space marking time
If we’re going to grow up and become flowers
Then we need to be students of movement
Swelling breaking opening emerging
Forgetting the madness we call our busy lives
The twisting and blinking between blossom
And wilting till we grumble about the mess
I’m going to make one now I’m going to prune
All the dead branches from the old lime tree