From BAMBOO RIDGE Issue Number 21, Winter 1983, New Moon

To Buddy, on the Edge
                                         by Dean H. Honma

Buddy calls the other day
tells me,
“got some good deals, brah,”
says the bay won't break again
till September,
and the south
“got too much haoles.”
He wants us to fly over,
pick up a few deals
and bring him Honolulu on the way home.
But I remember the last time,
the rented Cessna,
the eight pounds Buddy packed
in an old market box,
keeping the cockpit windows open while we smoked,
and the storm that nailed us
twenty minutes out of Lihue.
Oh, that was a mean mother,
and when we couldn't climb it,
you rammed into its heart at full throttle,
swallowed by that thick milk
and screaming rain,
air pockets as big as craters.
But that Buddy,
laughing us right through it,
loving the edge
and living hard to stay there,
he wants to look for more storms.
“Fuckin' great ride,” he says.

So I'm thinking
how that edge keeps lookin' better everytime,
and I want it all back again.
I call Buddy,
tell him we can get a plane this week.
“I sold it to some haole already,”
he says, “and the bay came up six feet yesterday.
“Sorry brah.”

Well Buddy. The next storm
comes in December,
and you know how summer
dulls the blade.

* * * * *

Bio: In 1983 Dean said,”I am an English major at UH, born and raised in the Islands, and presently living a meager existence in Manoa Valley.”