Book Lovers Hawaii Poem

Bones Of Hawaii, The Big Island Desert

 

 

I really thought I was on another part of the Island

I don’t know if I could say I was lost, The Big Island

As it is known

Is only a hundred and fifty miles across

I was exploring

Just like Captain Cook

Only instead of exploring uncharted lands

And seeking isolated peoples to enlighten

I wanted to see this place

This talked about, revered, golden place

And I ended up in the desert by mistake

There was no one there for miles upon miles

Scrub brush and cooled lava rolling on for hours

Hypnotized into a sense of peacefulness

I stopped thinking these harsh places

Were not so bad

And then I saw them

How they got there, how they got the way they were

Is still a mystery

If I hadn’t been spooked I would have taken a bone or two

But instead I just snapped a photo

Left the sun-bleached remains of that—

I don’t know what it was.

They were bones, from a creature I didn’t know

It was no dog, did not seem to be any kind of pig

I was too shocked to think it was some kind of crime

But somehow they got there

Far off in another land

Another traveller must be at home

Thinking about an illegal hunting trip

And how he wanted to spirit out the bones

Of his kill

But instead left them

To be found by a curious Canadian

Stopped to look down at a desert valley

I am no stranger to surprises

Once, in the badlands as a young man

I hiked out into the badlands of the Drumheller Valley

And in the morning searching further

I saw Jesus

Not in a spiritual sense, I really saw him

He was 40 feet tall, with a robe and his hands

Spread out to welcome the sinners he had

Paid for with his blood.

I wonder if the blood of this pig-dog

In the desert of Hawaii

Ever saved anyone

I suppose it matters not

The Jesus I saw was a statue

Part of what is known as

Dinosaur National Park

I like to find new places

Where the sun beats down

And no one ever goes to the nooks and crannies

Never sees the things I see

Perhaps I’m a little mad

Perhaps the world is a little mad

Leif Gregersen

October 31, 2014

Check out my work and blog at http://www.edmontonwriter.com