One Prose Poem by Greg Patrick

 

City Of Refuge Hawaii - Pu‘uhonua o Hönaunau

The idol-adorned prow of the patron demigod of the sea, seemed to ward off the rain from the massing clouds and the vessel seemed like an isolated and diminutive champion confronting a colossus. He allowed himself a brief moment of solace but it was a dulcet painful brevity like a kiss on eve of battle. The elusive peace or contentment that the mariner-haunted could not endure. For the gaze would look from reunited lover back to the sea with a guilty yearning to the horizon as if back to the sight of an old passing love by in a crowd or a blue-gowned belle beyond one’s reach but not one’s dreams.

The Polynesian praise singer reflected that the dolphins in like beams of submerged blue flame might as well be ancestral or guardian spirits ushering in a new voyage or quest really. He like their way of hunstsmanship sought in his song and substance in the void between shallows and depths. Like the last strain of a duet between a soprano and baritone of love at first song composed from a depth of heart and inspiration in a vicarious inspiration of the same passion. The dolphin twirled in an aerial pirouette revelling with a dancer’s grace, supple in its silver form.

To his lasting delight before the entourage of dolphins dispersed, the alpha dolphin launched from the depths in a vision of effortless grace, like an oceanic battle cry incarnate. Like candleflames or celestial particles in valediction thrown the spray seemed and the disenchantment of the exile was like an ancient warrior rejuvenated for one last battle. Like a lingering lover’s quarrel between earth and sky, arcing like a question mark poised between earth sea and shore, while in the background earth, sea and sky wavering between calm and breaking storm, met like counterspells in a duel of wizards.

The submerged gleam of the dolphin seemed the flash of elusive inspiration in the sublime gleam of the bard’s eye. Like the sudden gleam of a sentry’s hound’s eyes flaring above the sentry fires like a vampire bitemark opening. He shook his head of the intruding vision haunting him.  He looked to his companion then, eyes of molten green like enchantress’s potions, so did they cast irrevocable spell…He remembered when he asked her to escape.

As she was crowned in midnight of raven hair and a floral enhaloement adorning her brow…the voluminous eyes like tidepools of azure, catching the sacred firelight in bejewelled microcosm…it was how he would always remember her splendour if ever envisioned in a glance or sacred dance. Like Pandoran lids opening eyes met.

”We must away. Against the malady that afflicts our people there is no remedy…our healers and shamans cannot hold it at bay.”

We’ll find refuge across the sea.

A dormant fire like that which seethed beneath the surface likewise stirred in his soul in the sultry eve and the endless rhythms of the ageless sea whose incantative words were long forgotten and those heirs entrusted with its song long put to the torch.

As he too had felt to the disavowed land, as inseparable as the ray to the sun. The elemental touch of the wind like a dream lover’s caress or consoling touch of an ancestral spirit lulled his heart to some measure of repose.  He dared a forbidden look of valediction to the island that was for all his mortal summers all he knew akin to “homeland”. The island borne wind rich with aromatic pollen seemed a whisper of valediction.

The presence of the dolphins cheered him but how soon before others followed in his wake. On the swaying deck he was silhouetted against the foreground of red horizon like a dark confidence to the night and the chief’s ships manned by warriors like the march of a ghost army seemed to glide rather than stride in apparitional procession as they pursued.

Greg Patrick - A dual citizen of Ireland and the states, Greg Patrick is an Irish/Armenian traveller poet and the son of a Navy enlisted man.  He is also a former Humanitarian aid worker who worked with great horses for years and loves the wilds of Connemara and Galway in the rain where he's written many stories. Greg spent his youth in the South Pacific and Europe and currently resides in Galway, Ireland and sometimes the states.