(Ancient Hawaiian — “breath of life…)
I.
In the Western World men erected statues
in materials and forms so muscled and marbled
they chilled the chambers wherein they stood
For centuries, no paintings were hung
of a laughing Jesus
Fathers slapped small boys for weeping,
slapped them again and again
until their bodies became armored and dull
On desolate football fields coaches screamed
in one-hundred degree heat for them
to breathe through their nostrils
until they dropped into the gravel and dirt
Drill sergeants shouted directly into their ears,
commanded them to stand tall, harden their asses,
be men, kill without mercy
They learned to hold their breath just before they fired,
to swallow the urge to vomit standing over gutted bodies,
inhale and hold it, look but not see, count to five
As men, they handed other men a fist,
both greeting and warning,
tested the gripping power of the other for a flaw
In barber shops, along wooden bars in dark taverns
of underarm stench and rancid breath,
they hoarded what they felt, never showed a hand,
firmed their jaws, didn’t flinch, never let a smile
grow too wide, a laugh too loud
In board rooms across from Wall Street warlords
who drew their aces from below,
they learned to bluff, wait for a wild card,
grab the dirty cash and run
II.
The ones who dare wake one morning
on a seashore to an empty beach house,
the woman gone during the night with
the car, the children and the past
The sand is barren; the ocean calm
On impulse they dive from a bluff
into deeper waters, madly chase
boldly colored fish this way and that
hoping for an answer to a question
they feel helpless to recall
They find the ocean has no words,
that fish will always be silent,
tear away their masks and freely
give themselves up to untamed waves
sucking them down, raising them up,
under a sky as naked blue as
the defiance that leads them back
to the primal rhythms of the sea