Sunday, April 16, 2023: Greg Patrick's "City Of Refuge Hawaii - Pu‘uhonua o Hönaunau"

A dual citizen of Ireland and the states, Greg Patrick is an Irish Armenian traveler poet and the

son of a Navy man. Greg spent his youth in the South Pacific and Europe and currently resides in Galway, Krakow, and sometimes the states. He now writes and travels.

 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 liked

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 reveling 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 at 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 bejeweled 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 go 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.

© 2023 Greg Patrick