Wai‘ānapanapa
A Poem by Mark Kaplon
Upon these ocean-cliffs which stagger in and out into the distance
bursts of white mist leap against black rock
lighting up the cliff-line...
far away in the calm blue dark, huge waves form, and lunge
lunging on and on in one giant line toward the cliffs, crash—
klp'lsshhh—
and break
into a myriad white specks shooting high in the air
shrouding the far coast in massive clouds of vapor
then pour
in a thousand thin and thick waterfalls
down crevices in the cliff wall
returning back to the wide-flowing waves of the great ocean
of rises and falls... pulsating... with crests merging, splashing,
the whole moving as one fluid motion....
Mark Kaplon (he/him) teaches literature and Hawaiian culture on the Big Island of Hawai'i. His poems have appeared in dozens of journals, Canary, Hawai'i Pacific Review, and Lilliput Review among them, and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
