Venus over Monkeypod

Nightwatch in Kona

The volcano is seeping out and, by late afternoon, my eyes and nose burn from the volcanic fog (vog) drifting over the island. It steams up from the ocean south of here when downflowing lava-fire touches the water. Boston to Kona, my timing is still off. Tomorrow I’ll have my first swim out into the harbor — a familiar 1.2 mile stretch, rounding a buoy and back into the return. Last time, I saw a mother dolphin with her calves floating above a sandy break in the wide coral reef. It was a surprising interruption to my movement, stroke by stroke, over the coral and the swimmy life below me. This kind of swimming is like sitting in a window seat looking down at the slow moving squares of Minnesota cornfields. Elements of my synchronization, of arriving. What tomorrow might bring.

I sleep on a lanai attached to an airstream (Pearl) with Buddy-the-once-feral-cat puddled against my belly, heavy curve of sleep. My “sister” Thalia made this place. Her plantings — hibiscus, orchid blossoms, gardenia, and the many edibles of orange and lime, pomelo, breadfruit, cacao — make reverie of a stroll. The usual cacophony of conqui quieted by drought, I wakened to the sound of one lone caller, louder than any chorus, singing three notes into the night, waiting for a response, trying again. Laid still so as not to interrupt her, and set my gaze for awhile on the monkeypod in front of me. There it was. A call, the canopy, and a starscape stretching down to the farthest horizon. Bringing on the new.