Christmas Carol (Post-Christmas: 2005)

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At the ancient native Hawaiian “heiau” (temple
or sacred place) built of stone and still standing
in the forest above Oahu’s Sunset Beach 

As though he were sculpted there, so still
is the only Shama thrush of the winter
dripping melody among dropping needles
high in this raining forest of ironwoods 

above the dependable sun of Sunset Beach.
Here is this rosy singer who needs no audience,
no orchestra. He conducts his own score,
obbligato, a song of evening, various 
and rippling, floating on streams of sky. 

Secretive, a forest recluse, he will not stay
long, though we are attentive, quiet, 
our car windows down, our mouths open
and forming silent “Bravos” to his shy high tenor. 

Now, showered with sudden sun, he sails 
away, swaying and flicking his long tail, 
black and white and into the deepest green 
of the heiau, ancient retreat of old 
calm spirits, his safety, and his mate. 

We the earth-bound take the dirt road 
into night, hearing his ascending song, 
a feathery ticking and clicking, now sky high 
                        and lost. 

The car radio crowds in from Honolulu 
with its hard rock dirge of violence 
rumbling and groaning, thumping and spewing 
the daily death toll in an imploding land 
as America’s power slouches through Baghdad.