Encounters By Hauoli Kahaleuahi

Encounters

Unknown was your spirit, untouched by me.

Identified simply by name and looks,

Looks that failed to stop me, my wandering eyes.

But that was then, wandering eyes no more.

Like winds sent to the East, flailing and lost,

You traveled, not searching, rather living

And free, content was your soul, delicate too.

Somewhere, somehow this wind met a flower.

Beginning to bloom, my petals still thin,

Negligent to surroundings, your presence.

Maybe by the sea was the first clear sight,

Where eyes froze, petals upright in delight.

By the sea, a man, one of mystery.

Our bodies encompassed by elements

That were crashing, glistening in light.

Enchanted by both nature and man.

Time easily slipped by, no encounter.

Minds frequently trailing back to the sea,

Fantasies of salty kisses not made,

Hoping for courage, next will be better.

Butterflies seized to halt, fluttering mad,

Erupting into flight upon chatter.

Words escaped nervously from tongue to tongue,

Leaving two smitten in a land of lust.

Lust to love was a sudden molding, sure,

And bound tight, woven by hopes of future.

Once a blooming bud, now becomes woman.

In the hands of destiny, she found her match.

By wind and sea came visions of today,

A dream once, though now fulfilled by his touch.  

 ________________________________________

Ghost

BY CYNTHIA HUNTINGTON

At first you didn’t know me.

I was a shape moving rapidly, nervous

at the edge of your vision. A flat, high voice,

dark slash of hair across my cheekbone.

I made myself present, though never distinct.

Things I said that he repeated, a tone

you could hear, but never trace, in his voice.

Silence—followed by talk of other things.

When you would sit at your desk, I would creep

near you like a question. A thought would scurry

across the front of your mind. I’d be there,

ducking out of sight. You must have felt me

watching you, my small eyes fixed on your face,

the smile you wondered at, on the lips only.

The voice on the phone, quick and full of business.

All that you saw and heard and could not find

the center of, those days growing into years,

growing inside of you, out of reach, now with you

forever, in your house, in your garden, in corridors

of dream where I finally tell you my name.