Lobster-claws

Carols in Amakihi in the forest after a shower.

The pendant lobster claws of a Heliconia gleam in sunlight amid a green thicket of leaves.

This morning we bobbed in ocean waves, swam in sight of an island with a single palm at the summit, observed flat-bottomed cumulus-topped steel blue clouds sail low over water, listened to surf break over black lava rock, over black lava rock.

Scanning the horizon's curving rim, I yearned to see a pod of humpback whales, but through binoculars saw an endless shimmer of wave crests that stung my eyes.