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Pele's Hair
by Kristina Woodhill
Kilauea Iki's lava crater,
I walked down onto you
One day last week
Through tropical, vibrant jungle,
Path and feet brushed
In casual island fashion
By vines, flowers, tree branches all embracing
Rustling birds' songs, lush green
Your dense cliff collar,
Verdant curtain of a sort,
Softer introduction shielding
Your black hard countenance,
There at the bottom
We met,
You, staring back, caustically hinted,
I, nine years your elder,
Might consider wrinkle cream,
Eyelid tucks, hair hue less ash-and-pepper
While your stony face,
Stopped clock needing a good cleaning,
Hands at all angles
Like the winder punched in,
Work the last thing on her mind,
Seemed a crazed potter's playground;
Hoping mistakenly for pliable clay,
A fit thrown when her wheel refused to turn
Spattered Picasso noses all over your face,
Stunned mouths and cauliflower ears,
Many, too many
Punched and heaved about by a madwoman
With a flinging scrapper spatula;
Hot open kiln, oh, goddess! Oh, red liquid pain!
A subtle try at heavy eyebrows,
Raised slightly,
As smooth thick, broad cheeks
Repel my finger's brushing touch;
Hard, abrasive blackness your cohesive features,
Dulled silence deafens our shocked awe;
Here and there,
Shallow fissures filling sparsely with stunted ferns
Watered often
By Hinakuluiau's soft showers;
Oh, Pele,
We alien visitors,
Our constant motion your antithesis,
Senses invigorated by your story,
Eyes sharp, knees toughened,
Stoop to peer closely,
Dare your hot nature,
Yet pray for cool calm,
Thrill to discover and hold in our hand
A single glass strand
Of your straight, golden hair
10/16/2014 Posted on 10/16/2014
Copyright © 2025 Kristina Woodhill
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Chris Sorrenti on 10/16/14 at 08:46 PM As always, Kristina, rich vocabulary and message...and great discipline expressing it only in couplets; quite effective. Coincidentally, I saw an episode of the paranormal docu-series National Park last week, and it was on Pele, so this time I didn't have to go running to Google. LOL. :) |
| Posted by Philip F De Pinto on 10/18/14 at 01:16 PM such a bevy of sweet intoxicating lingo. I thrill in your adventure, Kristina. Pele is a lucky fellow to have such a poet thread through his realm to extract from such a muse as is Hawaii, as instigates in one such lines as you've divined here, more technicolorful than was e'er a paradisal bird. |
| Posted by Alison McKenzie on 10/19/14 at 01:44 AM This is so deliciously descriptive! And interwoven, the metaphors, so many of them. Lovely work! |
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