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KAUAI
HANALEI
'THE FROND FANDANGO"
My wife, Pamela, loves to shop for interesting original pieces of handcrafted jewelry. I'm usually looking for a good place to park the car in the shade or my fanny in a cool chair until she finds her favorites for my opinion.
After one such afternoon of viewing the local wares in the town of Hanalei along the north coast of Kauai, I parlayed my involvement with her hobby for a time out, to drive up the Wainiha Valley as far as I could go. On the way back toward the coast road, I glimpsed this image, pulled over as soon as I could, and shut off the engine. As I reached for my camera, Pam asked what I was doing. I got out of the car, stretched, and replied, “I'm shopping for jewelry."
"THE ALBIZIA TREE, MID CANOPY"
"After cutting down most of the large native trees of Kauai by 1900, those who felt the loss imported the fast- growing Albizia tree from Indonesia. The act of moving a life form from one global region to another has frequently been questionable if not downright disastrous.
“Thankfully, the Albizia trees in Kauai seem to be a graceful arboreal addition to the delightful range of flora in this island environment," he typed on his keyboard with a nagging trepidation.
Just then a strong wind outside distracted his thoughts and he got up from his computer to look out the windows of his Colorado home. Tumbleweeds, like a stealthy guerilla army, rolled across the hills outside, scattering their seeds everywhere.
"You prickly Som-bitches," he yelled, as if venting his spleen would somehow freeze them in their tracks.
He felt an overwhelming sense of futility. Somewhere deep in his soul, he knew that despite his yearly fight to keep this nasty imported Russian thistle scourge from the Siberian Steppes at bay, the weed had a good chance of outliving humanity.
"THE HALA TREE POLE DANCE"
EAST COAST KAUAI
What moves,
what stems,
and check out the hairdo,
A tree like Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase"
with shimmering, bejeweled hands.
