A HYMN TO HER

A HYMN TO HER

Who got us here

Dark when we backed out
and later parked
at DTW.
Traveled in a need-a-nap kind of way
to a Sheraton layover
on San Diego’s bay.

SUN IS COOL
 
Octane level, high.
Anticipation, the fuel.
Cruise Hawaii? 
HI!

No one to cater to.
Just we two

except for the guys nearby
in buses and bars.
One lives in his yacht outside.

Fragrant grass, fresh, mowed,
not cut from Michigan's cold
February mold.

Pansy and camellia accents.
They grow a lot when it's not so hot.

Nice touch, southern Cal,
to your winter hospitality.

Harbor Drive, a chance to walk.
Spring in step
and nearly on the calendar.
My usual pains seem to wane
unburdened by work-out aims.

For a city’s views we took a trolley.
Eventually lured by Balboa’s gardens.
Cactus in one, lunch in another
and an orchid pause ‘neath redwood lathes.

Evening at the motel.

Outdoor space heaters
could not warm the patios.
Dined instead inside.

TIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

We sail the ocean, blue,
gray, white, dyed or bald,
never far from our jackets and sweaters.

Game sailors, we
negotiate the seas
armed with canes, walkers, power chairs
and, God bless 'em,
our nurses and aides.

No spring break party ship
nor Disney cruise for kids --
this, a longer trip for those
with time to ply the seas
entertained
toward paradise.

Hours to read, nap, shop duty free,
play cards, nap, visit the casino, hot tubs and spas,
take in the shows, nap
or just nip
a little booze.

FINALLY FOUND A QUIET
POOLSIDE TABLE.
"ARE YOU EXPECTING A GROUP TO JOIN YOU?"
"NO'S" ANSWER:  A GROUP

Our shipmates are old.
Odd
how easily our conversations go.
Odder still,
my difficulty keeping pace
on the promenade.

Elevator mats ease the way.
“Tuesday.”

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

If you've an aesthetic eye
beauty may elude you here.
The beautiful, the young have no time
to while away at sea.
Land locked work sites pay too dear.

We’ve had time to settle our bits,
sag a bit
and find ourselves, the aging plain,
alongside the others
on that downward plane
toward hard-to-notice.

Little desire to steal second looks,
flirt or fantasize. 
Now what meets my eyes, . . . ,

a couple rapt in books,
he more so than she --
    two for one happy hour wine,
    she refills her glass from his, . . . ,

companions in their 80s
willing to share
cruises
and what life brings their way --
    he keeps her moving.
    she tends his hearing aids, . . . ,

a woman who spends between-cruise time
checking travel deals,
arranging rental cars
and reading Rick Steves
    to keep her husband’s livelihood
    alive.
   
LIFE ON THE SEA
IT'S TO DIE FOR

On the one hand's digits
I use to count my cruises
some guests count the places
they have yet to visit.

Joan from Juno cruises again and again
her home town.
In her words, assisted living
in sin.

Seasoned by the many days a year they spend away
and the friends they see from sea to sea
they gladly share their lore.
“Cruise Critics,” on the net.

Able to afford the longer cruises
of a month or more,
they work the angles,
to get cappuccino free,
how much wine you can bring aboard,
and get it to the dining room.

When seniors spend two-thirds of the year at sea
the risk is real
of lost lives.
We were told one ship had five.
They don’t turn the ship around
or return to port.  Instead,
they store you in a cooler, . . . ,

next to the Jello.

HAWAIIAN MUSIC HAPPY HOUR
UKELELE  AND HULA LESSONS,
YOUNG COUPLE
WITH FLOWERS IN THEIR HAIR
PREP THE GUESTS FOR A TALENT SHOW

Some tales border legendary.
82-year-old Ann from Ketchikan
holds up Claudia from Puget Sound,
a 94-year-old cruising queen.
Another recalls five dialysis patients
rounding Cape Horn.
Then a jumper’s tragic suicide
on day 33 of a 49 day cruise.
The ship circled three times,
to most of the guests, unknown.



THE ARRIVAL

Day one, Hilo

Task one, wake up the cell phones!

Disappointed one,
no wahines garlanding us with leis.

Stop one, samples from a candy shop.
Then coffee tasting at Holo,
a coffee plantation.
Lessons on growing, harvesting, drying,
storing, milling, decaffeinating, tasting.

The wine nerds have nothing on us.

Fortified.

On to
Hawaii’s Volcanoes National Park.

INSIDE OUT

An incongruous mix
of misty dripping rain forests
and a black rocky moonscape
of pit volcanoes,
bottomless chasms
steam vents
and a gray caldera
punctuated by a distant hole
with white steam clouds
and an eerie orange glow.
Come, hike a lava tube.
Feel the earth move?

UPSIDE DOWN

Day two
tender to
Lahaina
on Maui.

Out into the protected bay
where mothers and babies play,
fattening for the venture north
to Alaska’s waters,
food rich with krill.
On the right,
a humpback breached,
whale watching’s holy grail.
We were looking left. Oh well.
There’s one, logging,
asleep afloat.
Then two males fighting
dangerously close
to that tourist boat.

OUT AND ABOUT

Carole's idea, taxi away
from tourism bay.
   
Freshen up at a tropical plantation.
Outside, growing, rows and rows
of who knows
what.  A landscaper’s dream.
Inside, curios,
clean.
Outside, rain, mist, rainbows somewhere
all the time.

Longer pause,
at Iao Valley State Park.
Wailua Falls,
rain dependent, permanent
with 500 inches of rain.
Hiked steps,
too many to count,
although my body took detailed notes.

Driving back to port,
Golfing aficionado?
View Kapalua

By the way, here’s a game.
First one to see an out-of-state license plate.

MYTH AND REALITY

Day three
the port, Nawiliwili,
Kauai, the garden isle.

Hollywood took notice.
So did TV.
We toured to find out why
movies and shows
locate here.
Something to do with
waterfalls, beaches, music,
world class resorts,
and hula dancers.
Gilligan on Moloa’a Bay
George Clooney at Tahiti Nui’s
Elvis at Coco Palms.
The beach for South Pacific.
Need an exotic spot?
Here’s Jurassic Park.

RESURRECTING LIFE

Oahu, Day Four

Punchbowl Cemetery,
Honolulu’s National Cemetery of the Pacific --
since 1948 honoring American lives sacrificed in Pacific wars
and, before that, Hawaiian royalty.

Pearl Harbor Memorial,
manicured, moving.
Crowds.
So much commotion
to experience the silence.
Appropriate venue for reflection
on the silencing of so many
in 1941’s conflagration.

Artist and submariner
rose to the call of new life’s beauty.
Now Lisa and Brett share their home and family
for an afternoon of Kailua hospitality.
Lilikoi and Everett, nearly new,
natural entertainers.
Derrick and Devon doing what teens do,
on the computer.


TURNING AROUND


DRIVING THE SHIP FROM THE CROWS' NEST
DAMNED MARTINI
ALMOST RAN OVER A WHALE

Trip back into the trade winds
38 mph headwind plus 20 mph ship speed
apparent wind speed near 60 mph.

TIME AND AGAIN

Dedicated walkers on the promenade
4 laps to a mile
on a shifting, rolling surface
Through it all, my wife maintains
her three mile standard.

How am I doing?

A plodder.
All faster than I. 
But that woman who passed me earlier
seems to have disappeared.
Was that her last lap
of twelve?
Could her walk today be a respite
from her usual 36,
in training for a longer run?
Or was she just out for a bit of fresh air?
Hard to know how I stack up
without knowing their walking stories.
But day 2 was better than day 1.

RANDOM PICK

Invited to cocktails
and dinner at a ship officer's table,
joined by his date from Wyoming.
The rest of our crew,
a retired surgeon and his international travel agent wife,
a Canadian couple of Welsh origin, he a physicist
and a couple on their 110th cruise.

Go figure.

A young Brit, our officer,
is one of many supplied by the world’s navies.
We were reminded of our U. S. Navy friend
who inevitably gets asked,
“Where’s the casino?”
when at formal cruise events
he wears his dress uniform.

My hearing, garbled
so conversation, limited
to the lady next to me,
the travel agent.
She travels with her tours.
Hannah, she said Norway is the destination of choice for dog sled racing.

Delightful dinner.
Candelabra, roses,
and great wine choices.
Orange shrimp, orange cocktail sauce,
salad, soup, surf and turf,
and poached pear for dessert.
We almost decided to blow it off.

Go figure.

BACK AT THE BAY

Solid ground in San Diego, CA

Work those iPhones!
What’s the weather today?
Michigan, winter still.
Sun and eighty here.

Enough sun to worry us at the pool. 

Watched a young boy
with a poolside control pad
play helicopter
in a handicapper chair.

HOME WITH HER

An easy trip.
DRK
4/25/13