Walking Trail

[Eds. note: This is the eighth of 14 runner-up posts from the recent Kauai on My Mind Creative Competition.]

by Charles Looney

It is a walking trail.
It offers
a lungful of plumeria air,
a chat with the broke winged nene,
a glimpse of heron blue predator
rippling the green lagoon waters
with wings to an island, an egg, a fish,
and silly white-masked Coots
or red-masked Moorhens
who talk like geese
who walk on tiny stilts
who want to but can’t be
ducks at all.

It is to be assaulted
with the usual machines
for the usual reasons.
Some will survive the
carbon monoxide
and the ripping of the earth.
Some will collapse
into history.
Some will linger
to remember,
a poison tree on a poison hill.