Email Poem

Your IP Address: 3.147.13.233
Your Email Address:
To Email Address:
Subject
Personal Note:
Poem Title:
Poem
KEY - W: Will/Me - F: Friend - M: Mom

Thanksgiving week of '75, as a concurrent student earning multi-degrees from two campuses, and one off. I lived above the Uni, uphill, panicview Hilo Town and I rode a Schwinn.

Thanksgiving Day fell on the 27th of '75, earlier at my family's home in Kalapana, first of two Thanksgiving meals. Few hours later, my friend picked me up and I had another Thanksgiving meal, at his family's beach house in Hilo. I spent the night there and the next day he brought me back to my family's home. We planned to spend an all-dayer at the beach park nearby, on that Friday the 28th. We fell asleep in the car's front seats. It was near to midnight when we left the beach park and headed back to his home in town.

The clock on top of their large TV, one of the floor-up 70s models, shows it's 1:15 a.m. In front of the TV, my friend is sprawled out on the shag carpet floor. I'm on the sofa, right leg hangs o'er an armrest. My body faces the TV, Liz Taylor's on the tube by some rocks, and Burton is walking down on a sloping sand hill with a house behind him ... then nothing--I'm out. Now I'm awake to my friend on the floor who's in a push-up position, and my right foot hits the floor. The two-story beach house drops down BIG TIME and heaves upward, drops down again, not so much this time, goes up again, not so much this time either. Then the shaking, rattling, things falling, glass breaking, then slow moves, slower, slowest ... to a stop. It was like a wet dog wiggling the wet off of its body. The time is now 3:35 a.m., yet just ere, my concerns were elsewhere. 

(Officially, November 29, 1975, 3:33 a.m., 5.7-5.9 on the Richter scale 14 miles south of Hilo--near Kalapana)

During the quake, the TV was snowy and invalid. It cleared to a coast scene, gold-sun-like, I think it's the credits of 'The Sandpiper'. No, I think it's my friend talking to me. F: "Whoa, did you feel that--cause I felt that!" W: "Did I kick you?" F: "I don't know, maybe?" W: "Well, don't wake me up next time ... You, or your earthquake buddy." F: "Oh funny?" W: "Noise--Shh!"

THIS TIME, our eyes glued to the clock, 4:47 a.m. We felt like surfboarders, ridin' the top crest of the wave, sensing our bodies downing the pipeline! The house was droppin', uppin', walkin', like the TV clears a wall. Friend tryin' to grab the front door knob, laughin', F: "CAN'T DO IT, CAN'T DO IT--THATAWAY, THISAWAY, NO WAY!" Walls hitting us, we're hitting walls! F: "WE'RE BEING SLAMMED--GET TO THE KITCHEN--TV BLOCKED THE FRONT DOOR!"

W: "YOUR DISHWASHER BLOCKIN' the kitchen door!" F: "IT CAN'T BE, IT'S BUILT TO THE FLOOR!" W: "What floor? Your mom's rose bushes are up the hole of the floor???" F: "MOM!" M: "YOU GUYS GET OUT SON! GET TO WILL'S PLACE!" W: "My place?" F: "It's uphill, we gotta get away from the sea! LIL SIS!" M: "I GOT HER SON--you guys just go!" W: "Com-on, they'll be okay!" F: "OH GREAT--HERE COMES THE FRIDGE!" W: Oh-oh??? OH--it stopped!!! The sirens blowing!" M: "Son get out, we will be right behind you! Use the E...!" F: "What she said?" W: "I don't know just go!"

W: "Sirens still blowing! Where is everybody, the main highway is empty?" F: "LOOK! There's rocks on the highway--and ... and--oh my gawd! Is that fish flappin' on the road???" W: "It's a surge! The sirens are still blowin', it's comin', the tsunami's comin'--we gotta go!" F: "I gotta go back--I gotta get my mom and lil sis!" W: "We won't make it bro, she got the van." F: "But where are they, where is everybody???" W: "LOOK O'ER THERE!" F: "WAY OVER THERE?" W: "IN THE GRASSLANDS--HEADLIGHTS, ALL SPEEDING TO THE HILLS!" F/W: "THE EVAC ROAD!!!" W: "That's why the coast highway's empty, traffic lights blinkin', sirens blowin'--DANG'IT, IT'S ALL YOU BRO, MANNA FROM HEAVEN, TASTE IT!" F: "What do you mean--I don't understand?" W: "Just GO!" F: "Uni-guys?" W: "Beach Bums!"

(Officially, November 29, 1975, 4:47 a.m., 7.7 on the Richter scale 28 miles south of Hilo, 3 miles west of Kalapana)

There was a young scout troupe of preteen-aged boys at a campground just a couple miles from our Kalapana home when the calamity occurred. The adult scout leaders sought help from nearby families which avail themselves immediately forasmuch be the case, they know the area, places of access seemingly deceptive, and quicker access to transports, devices, and other tools of property. These were the best concepts that country folks would closely represent as a rapid response team. Calls were made nonetheless, for fire and rescue, and the sorts. 

News of the melee was heart-wrenching. Many boys to a few adults, woke from their tents into darkness--water lurked danger, land benefit the wiser. When the forces of nature overwhelm the common concepts of humanity, then the involvement of humanity parts to Heaven's intervention, and nothing more and nothing less. 

Running into darkness, shadows of the moon for the hour most stars were long called to a south hemisphere. The sounds of a crumbling Earth as lands of certainties were but collapsing cliffs of rocks and boulders, then a turn for hope to face an insurmountable rising fate of chance ...

Found in a coconut grove
with its straight sturdy bark
clung to armless palms fronds of few
scattered as the close-knit held true
of a tilted underground shelf 
that broke apart ...

A troupe of separates no longer divides
are wondering why they are missing two guys
28 souls pray for 2 angels who now call Heaven rolls 
28 cries 2 consoles 28 lives 2 angels 
28 guys 2 new roles 28 byes 2 now flys

[PICTURED: Troupe/Coconut grove sunk in the water, as did their tents between cliff and grove. Tsunami rose up palms/with them hanging on to dear life to fronds that tore away, grabbed another and prayed. We drove past what's left of the Beach Park. PICTURED: Park restroom torn off foundation/shoved inland. The car was in the Park, restroom near the PARK entrance. The Beach Park '75 gone underwater/'90 by lava--we'd have died.]
CAPTCHA Preview
Type the characters you see in the picture
Required