Petroglyphs

Petroglyphs scattered All over Hawaii Carved on black volcanic rocks Mysterious they are Stoke human curiosity Unendingly Human and other forms Numbers and writings Carved by the island’s ancient natives Long before the Whites entered the scene No one can gauge What they truly meant We are left with guesses and conjectures Lots of touristic balderdash Me, a frail, wavering human frame At late seventies Walked across the blackness On cracked volcanic lava rocks Defying winds and sun The past bloomed In different forms Carved on solidified lava A human form here Elsewhere a human thought In an unknown alphabet Or a secret number or sign Splendorous indeed Are the stone writings Showcased across the island A tourist’s paradise They dragged me back to my teenage When I climbed a rocky peak Close to my village home Laboured hard on its head And chiselled my name Alongside my heartthrob’s My name and hers Set apart by a heart Pierced by an arrow In the middle Sweet, bleeding, passionate Perhaps, the monsoon rains, Winds and sunshine Have undone my petroglyph What else can I expect In more than sixty years Of my residence elsewhere Away from my native nest How much I wish I could again climb that peak To view my sweetest script On its unthinking pate Alas! Am now close to eighty Can’t climb that height To view it again And sing to my past youthful glory Stars and planets! Look at it please Read it aloud to me The song of my youth Engraved on the rock The whole sky will join in In full-throated revelry The universe has no choice Glory all the way petroglyphs Wherever you are On the surface of this earth!