Friday, October 7, 2011

Poem 2 - Susan

Sea and Fire

This week I too was inspired by the inanimate - in my case, the Hawaiian islands that I currently call home. The Hawaiian island chain was formed at the site of a hot spot between tectonic plates, deep deep in the Pacific Ocean. Each new volcano is formed as the magma produced by the hot spot cools and builds up upon itself, eventually breaking the surface as a new island. As the Pacific Plate moves, so too do the island volcanoes. As they get farther away from the hot spot, erosion begins to act upon shores that are no longer replenished by cooled magma. The islands shrink, and eventually sink back into the ocean. The Hawaiian hot spot is currently shared by three volcanoes on the Big Island of Hawaii, among them, Mauna Loa, which, if measured from the its base at the ocean floor, is the tallest mountain on Earth.



Mauna Loa

I was born into contradiction –
from molten fire
into the cool and deep
of the ever shifting Earth.
I grew.

Youngest of my brothers:
in the salty dark,
I built myself
of liquid flame, extinguished
and made hard, again,
and again.

I grew by centimeters,
and millennia would pass
before I felt the kiss
of Tradewinds on my faces,
the lick of waves in hidden inlets,
the great green caress of Life.

Youngest of my brothers:
I am not now so young.
The boiling life within my veins
grows cold, and cracks.
The Earth still moves beneath me,
I am powerless,
and vast.

I will die in contradiction –
sucked into the womb
that birthed me.
In the cool, and deep,
fire becomes stone.

1 comment:

Naomi said...

The language you use in this poem is exquisite, and I really like the rounded use of repetition. It fits and builds the idea of life cycles that runs through the poem. The tone of this poem is broad and majestic, like the island it speaks for.

You mention the relationship the poem has with its brothers (sisters?) only as comparative. That familiar term made me wonder more about that relationship, and the relationship with the parental magma. This could be built on for a mythic feel.