Contact 
That’s when two stuff 
Touch, yeah? 

Just like when the tides come in 
And touch the shores 
Bringing what it will. 

Fish from the deep 
Limu from the shores 
ʻOpihi from the rocks 
Coconuts on the drift 
Logs from the continent 
People from around the world 
Plastics and ʻopala of all sorts. 

The shore has no choice 
It has to accept 
Whatever the tides bring. 

Here we are 
In this swirling muliwai 
Of ideas and manaʻo 
Philosophies and spiritualities. 

Like the tides 
Ebbing and flowing 
The shore has no choice. 

But we do! 

Contact 
That’s when two stuff 
Touch, yeah? 

Just like when the tides come in 
And touch the shores 
Bringing what it will. 

Fish from the deep 
Limu from the shores 
ʻOpihi from the rocks 
Coconuts on the drift 
Logs from the continent 
People from around the world 
Plastics and ʻopala of all sorts. 

The shore has no choice 
It has to accept 
Whatever the tides bring. 

Here we are 
In this swirling muliwai 
Of ideas and manaʻo 
Philosophies and spiritualities. 

Like the tides 
Ebbing and flowing 
The shore has no choice. 

But we do! 

Your love was like moonlight
turning harsh things to beauty,
so that little wry souls
reflecting each other obliquely
as in cracked mirrors . . .
beheld in your luminous spirit
their own reflection,
transfigured as in a shining stream,
and loved you for what they are not.

You are less an image in my mind
than a luster
I see you in gleams
pale as star-light on a gray wall . . .
evanescent as the reflection of a white swan
shimmering in broken water.