Drunk on the moon, the sky, the ground.
Thank God this is my only addiction.
Sitting on the ground in the dark earth,
hacking away at an impossible forest of ti roots,
roots that had once anchored the plants in profusion.
These were started back in plantation days,
when lei makers paid two dollars a leaf.
Good money back then
for dispossessed workers
still discovering ways
to support themselves.
The plantation was the economy.
There was little choice.
Despite the low wages, there was community.
Laughter. Shared meals and dancing
on the ocean cliffs at day’s end.
Given their homes
for the ten dollars it cost
to move them mauka,
up away from the ocean.
The valuable real estate remained near the ocean, itself.
To me, this ti garden was wasted space.
The plants—trees, really—
were broken, rotting, full of holes.
A better use would be fruit trees:
papaya, banana, citrus.
And so we spent the weekend
hacking away at the extensive roots
crisscrossing the ground.
The slow, tedious work
put me in a kind of trance.
Then—
the glint of emeralds,
a little cicada struggling
out of the ground,
trying to make its way.
The lizard came out of nowhere.
So close
I could have reached out
and grabbed it.
It swallowed
the cicada whole.