Hula in fall 2020

Music rings, chuckles

through COVID-19’s dark orbit,

the beating wings of blue birds

over rainbows raised by elbows,

the whispering sway of kaholos

in rhythm to flashes of IZ out of

a Bluetooth sound system.

We practice hula on the stage

of an empty outdoor amphitheater,

masked, six-feet apart.

A fluid grace unmoors us from the

present, COVID-19 just an illusion,

distant, ephemeral…

We appeal to a cosmic symmetry

like approaching a sunrise against

a flat horizon of night. Above,

the dark wings of turkey vultures loop

leisurely, our luminosity slowing descent

of feathered black edges from swallowing

what’s light.