by Eric Paul Shaffer
_____ If a moment under the sun happened only once,
that would be one, but as I lay in the sunlight reading,
a shadow flicked over the page beneath my eyes.
I looked into the light, and through the clouds soared
_____the ‘iwa, the glorious crook-winged glider of sea
and shore, veering waveward after a long, luxurious turn
over the broken broad green grove between the beach
and the marsh. I remember a twin shadow touching me,
this bird glowing between me and the sun, happened once
_____years ago. Even then, I thrilled at the brush of this
dark swift image. This same shade recalls the one before,
and now, I am one, yet another one, one of those twice
_____touched by a flight through sky and sun of a fellow
thief in fleeting, familiar form, one of many to come.
Eric Paul Shaffer is author of eight poetry volumes, including Green Leaves: Selected & New Poems; Even Further West; A Million-Dollar Bill; Lāhaina Noon; and Portable Planet. 650 individual poems appear in reviews in America and eleven actual nations. Shaffer lives on Oʻahu.
Hawaii Pacific Review 