Why the Golden Plover Stands There by Trish Saunders

I came here to learn the language of trees,
ancient tongue
nearly extinct
like the Hawaiian Crow
or shave-ice shacks on
Kamehameha Highway
where Aloha Gas now sits.

I came expecting koa trees and palms
and found instead an
old brick wall,
a golden plover standing motionless
beside it though
he flew a thousand miles to be here.
Like the plover, I came expecting more.

Trish Saunders divides her time between Seattle and Honolulu. She has poems published or forthcoming in Right Hand Pointing, Off The Coast, Gnarled Oak, Fat Damsel and numerous other publications in North America, Europe and Australia.

Photograph by Forest and Kim Starr.