Art Maui

April 2–28, 2018
Schaefer International Gallery
Maui Arts & Cultural Center
One Cameron Way, Kahului
ArtMaui.com

Poetry by Lali Groth

Yellow beaked mynah bird
larger and more melodic than a missionary,
cane fire, cane fields, mongoose
running across the road, hurry, hurry.
Local kids in the back of a truck, hair flying, surfboards bungeed in.
Haupia popsicles, Launiupoko, shards of blue, ocean hue—
cerulean, bird’s egg, celadon.
Crouched supple body ready to paddle out,
over or through a turquoise swell, waiting for the set, goofy foot,
stand up, cut to the right, black pearl, hollow box.
Sunset set, all coral, salmon, hansa yellow,
black ink viscosities of the night.
And morning with its
red dirt, red trees, golden spined mountains,
sugar cane, color planes, tre venniner, three girlfriends,
Twombliesque pencil marks, crayon smudge, cardboard versus
canvas, yellow dory, exiles, mu‘umu‘us, lotus pod.
What’s endemic? What’s not?
We’re mostly not.
We’re more like calabash cousins,
patterned in rain and sea spray
like a pale blue weave of waves on a field of orange,
here once more to define, reflect, spin, throw, carve, sew, and
tend our blue atoll in the pacific, our Maui home.