Haleakala

Ten thousand feet, love, and the air
is thin. The push and pull of puny
 
lung, the slow step. The eye
sweeps deep blue, the mother
 
cradling a sleeping babe. We 
stand in the crater, the collapse
 
hundreds of years behind us,
the ash long settled to smooth
 
landscape, grays, mauves,
rust. A world come out of 
 
destruction in the house
of the sun.
 
Standing here, we tempt the
timeclock, trust this moment
 
is not the one to coax fire 
seeping to the surface, trust
 
the babe to sleep still. Our bones
splinter so easily, who are we to
 
reach this height? To feel the mist
of cloud cloak our skin. And isn’t it 
 
the same question each time we 
love? We are all soft tissue, always 
 
verging on decay. Flinging ourselves
forward, grasping at sunbeams, 
 
believing tomorrow 
will come.
 
In Hawaiian, Haleakala means house of the sun. 

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