Luggless
By Michael H. Kew
[preface] Some years back, a crew for Surfer magazine found Vanuatuan surf but had no way of riding it due to Air Vanuatu’s incompetency, failing to fly our luggage (including surfboards) the 90 minutes from Nadi to Port Vila. For a week our bags remained in Fiji; finally we had no choice but to cut our losses and abort the mission.
Vila aroma—
(Vilaroma)
together we roar surfboardless into nootropical
weeklong drip tickle-tick buzz of blooming bislama tears
Toth and Johnny grokking all of this Day One through green bottle glass of Tusker lager
a-shatter by drunken honey dream of blowing dustwind through rainforest
of ethereal first flower
of golden rainbow shower
before blackened power
of stickyfist streets
in feral wee hour
post-petanque amid pango pandanus
—now—loud shadow rags of tradewind
blissing radiance—north coast in hope
seasonal promise of brown rainforest rivermouth
minds of opposite trades
drowse beneath palmitic wisdom tree in fleeting moonbow
flood the firmament
read the white sand
finger the red sea
decipher coral ministry
our holy urtext of solacing
soliciting blood from sharp kaleid’scop reef
telluric momentum has been established
volumes of passionate weather
harmony twixt earth and heart
I thank gods with reflexive tears
no blue rooms
amid the blazing winterain
“been wearing the same underwear for a week,”
fotografer Brewer polites to unsmiling gal at Air Vanuatu desk—
“would you like to see it?”
Adapted from Incense Gardens, forthcoming work of travel poetry (Spruce Coast Press, 2022).
