When the beat drops
by Tamara Woods
His hands banging drums and
Her hips catching beats.
Fingertips raised skyward
Asking for directions to some pagan god.
He wonders if she smells like the rain
Gently kissing her upturned face.
Music links them
Fluid ocean and steadfast beach,
He wanted her to wash up against his shore
Taking pieces of him with her.
Ebbing and flow.
Linked.
She moves like the steel drums
Birthed her years ago
In a swept away village
Where sun-kissed brows were
Stained with wolf berries
For life and fertility.
Molten golden fire strands catching the breeze
Her feet loses their slipper shackles
Leaving life prints in the sand
Leading him to her.
It would be so easy
To commune with spirits
At her side.
Giving praise to Pele
For surely her ancestors were born
From lava and tears
Leaving legacy on her crown.
And then the music stopped.
Tamara Woods was raised (fairly happily) in West Virginia, where she began writing poetry at the age of 12. She has previous experience as a newspaper journalist, an event organizer, volunteer with AmeriCorps and VISTA, in addition to work with people with disabilities. She has used her writing background to capture emotions and moments in time for anthologies such as Empirical Magazine, her blog PenPaperPad and writing articles as a full-time freelance writer. She is a hillbilly hermit in Honolulu living with her Mathemagician.
To Princess Kaʻiulani
by Robert Louis Stevenson
FORTH from her land to mine she goes,
The island maid, the island rose,
Light of heart and bright of face:
The daughter of a double race.
Her islands here, in Southern sun,
Shall mourn their Kaʻiulani gone,
And I, in her dear banyan shade,
Look vainly for my little maid.
But our Scots islands far away
Shall glitter with unwonted day,
And cast for once their tempests by
To smile in Kaʻiulani’s eye.
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