Fortune Teller

I came here just for fun, I thought,
For Sundays at the Banyan Court,
For what was then a smaller dream,
A smaller take on what would seem
Underneath the palms and shade,
A shill for what was ever made
Of beauty, reef, or rum,
Of trades, of bougainvillea
Spilling down a tamarind,
Of hauling skies and running wind,
Of what adolescents
Hope to gain from hints
Of rip and tide,
Of calm, of bride,
Of the ocean’s parting ion,
Childhood at the Royal Hawaiian.

The way I hoped to grow
Some forty years ago
Now arrives in retrospect,
Held up like a photograph at home,
The last thing you’d expect
Finalized by Kodachrome,
Where ancient worlds stop
At last, to answer if the swap
Of age and reason
Can justify a single season,
Can live up to
Its cardboard hype: if the sun,
In fact, came true,
And if the calmest ocean
Would as promised open
Like an orchid—
And you know, it really did.

July 2nd, 2006, 5:14–6:01 p.m.
Tropics Bar, Waikiki

December 22nd, 2006
Kailua