The Legend of Pohaku-o-Kane

                                    The Legend of Pohaku-o-Kane

      Long before humans discovered Kaua’i, a family of three huge rocks, two brothers and a sister, were seeking a new home.  They rolled across the ocean floor, visiting several islands and atolls before finally arriving at the north shore of Kaua’i.  

As they approached the shore, they were refreshed by the fresh water of the Limahuli Stream.  Breaking the surface, they saw that they were on a reef surrounded by fish.  The collors of the land, ocean, sky, and clouds delighted them.

O’o-a’a, the sister, was enchanted by this spot and decided to stay.  Basking in the warm sun and lulled by the sound of the waves, she soon feel asleep.  The brothers, wanting to go inland, rolled onto the sandy beach.  After a while, the younger brother, Pohaku-loa, stopped to rest in the shade of hala trees.  Enjoying the rustling leaves and cool breeze, he decided to stay.  Although his younger brother pleaded with him to continue up the mountain, Pohaku-loa fell asleep content.

The older brother continued alone, intending to climb to the top of the mountain.  When he reached the pali (cliff), his strength and determination were not enough.  He faltered and fell.  Again and again, he tried to reach the top, refusing to give up.  Eventually, the great god Kane noticed his struggling so hard and went to investigate.  He asked the rock why he was struggling to hard to reach the top.  The rock replied, “I want to be where I can watch the world below.”

Kane pointed out that it didn’t matter where the older brother was, for he would surely fall asleep as his brother and sister had.  The older brother insisted that he would remain awake.  Kane decided that this determined rock would never give up, that he would continue to climb and fall until all that remained of him was dust.  So Kane and the rock made a deal.

 Kane lifted the older brother and placed him on the top of the mountain ridge.  In return, the rock promised to stay awake and watch and remember all that went on below him.  

Then, Kane said, “When I come again, you must come tell me what you have seen.  When you are ready to go, the island will sink beneath the waters and the waves will climb upto you.  Then you and your brother and sister may begin to travel again.  Until then, watch and remember.”

---Limahuli Garden National Tropical Botanical Garden guidebook, Ha-ena, Kaua’i, Hawai’i,  p. 39

The Old Tree

As the tree grew, the new leaves in spring brought us hope. Its leafy branches in summer brought us its cool shade, a place to talk in the heat of the afternoon, as we sipped ice tea and lazed in the hot days. In the fall, its colorful leaves reminded us of the cycle of life and brought more beauty to our lives. When winter came, the bare limbs provided rough bark support for the flakes of sparkling snow on crisp days.

Over the years, the tree grew big and strong, and we took its presence in the yard for granted. Kids played noisily under its branches, and brought their friends. All too soon, they grew up and moved away. As the years passed, they’d come back, spouses and kids in tow, and children’s laughter was again heard under its spreading limbs.

As with us all, the tree grew old, losing a bit of its strength. One bitter day, a big storm cracked its trunk clear to the ground, and it was time to cut it down. Suddenly, that space in the yard no longer was filled with summer shade, or the maze of limbs sprinkled with the spring green of new leaves, or the orange and red fire of autumn.

Its thick trunk and fat limbs soon turned into a big pile of firewood, that warmed me as I split and stacked the seasoned hard wood. We were warmed again as the stove crackled and popped, during the depths of many a winter gale and early mornings, when my breath would turn white as I stood near the snowy flat top of the stump, my eye still seeing its tall, proud form.

I sat by the stump of the old tree one spring day, a new sapling in my hand, ready to plant. We needed a new tree there, in that corner of the yard, for the summer shade, and the colorful leaves in the fall, a place where kids could play and laugh. The yard seemed empty without a tree, in all its growing, in its presence in our lives.

Like many things in life, we didn’t really see the tree until it was gone, its silent place in our lives now missed, like the sound of children’s laughter after they’re grown.

I noticed the rings in the wood of the old tree stump. In counting the rings, I could tell its age, and remembered the events of our lives. And, in the counting, I saw that the big growth in the tree was in the spring and summer, when sun and warmth and water were plentiful. The thin, hard wood of the tree, its real strength, had come in the seeming deadness of the winter, when the storms and snows and freezing nights raged, when all seemed silent and lost.

As with new saplings and old wood, strength comes both in the flexibility of new growth, and the storm tested wood added in the height of a dark, cold winter.

8/29/2011

Perseverence

Perseverence

It was a lesson I apparently needed. Taking a break from gardening, I sat on the deck, lost in my own thoughts on one of those rare June days here, sunny, warm, and a cloudless blue sky, flowers blooming and birds flying around.

I noticed a swallow, swooping in to squeeze into the nesting box I’d nailed to the house, about seven feet above the deck, out of the reach of our cats. We’d been seeing some scouting and nest building going on there by a pair of barn swallows, their iridescent feathers shining in the midday sun.

Mama swallow approached the nesting box, with a large white feather, longer than she was. She grabbed onto the face of the box, trying to push the feather in. It was sideways in her beak, and all her pushing and noisemaking wasn’t enough to get the feather in. She flew away and dove in again. Still no luck. And, again.

Papa swallow was in the picture, too, swirling and dive bombing around, offering chirpy bits of advice. They flew around together, chirping, plotting.

On the fourth try, Mama had shifted the feather a bit, so the point was at more of an angle, and the feather slid into the hole, along with her. Papa chirped his glee, and there was a bit of a rustle inside the box for a bit, until Mama poked her head out, and flew off, joining Papa in a victory lap around the yard.

The feather was in, and the nest was about done. Let the egg laying begin!

Whatever human problem I was contemplating there, sitting on the deck, sipping iced tea and recuperating from a couple of hours of weeding and trimming, faded away. Perhaps if I just took a different approach, things would go easier.