A Hawaiian Lay
Let me tell you of a man in a roundabout way
As you casually straighten your tie
The first I heard of Wales
Was in a public school in England
Knotty Ash to be precise
The school was at the end of Thomas Lane
Which is or was all in Liverpool
During her remodeling period
Blitzwise
I learned of high narrow valleys
All wooded and full of game
Rushing streams teeming with salmon
Trout and prawns and tall pale riders
Several years later, after the V days
E & J
We went to Wales on holiday for a week
Staying at the cottage of the village poacher
and his wife the village witch
There I saw coal miners walking
Black to the pub and to home
I saw great piles of slag heaps
and fences around holes in the ground
The hills were round and green and treeless
The streams still teemed with trout
And rabbits were all for the taking
That was in the forties
I returned in 87
There were maybe five more houses
The salmon still jumped madly up the weirs
Wales was as magic as ever
It had not changed
In 1956 from the window of a landing plane I saw Hawaii
Green Mountains jutting from the sea
Oahu was emerald in a sea of azure blue
Three years I lived there on the edge of the Alawai Canal
Twelve bars down from the Royal Hawaiian
Painted Kaiser pink to please his wife
Which was all part of Waikiki
I met an old man of fifty or so
Who told me how beautiful it had all been
After it’s remodeling period
Pre Tourist Era
To humor him I asked what was different
All these hotels and roads and traffic
He said sadly
Now I’m fifty or so
I saw Waikiki on TV last week
I may never go back
Did I tell you about Wales?
I lied.
Your tie is crooked
Copyright © Donald Meikle | Year Posted 2006
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