Maui, Revisited

by Diane Funston

Maui wears a gown of flowers.
Orchids, ginger, bougainvillea.
She adorns her limbs
with the red-wine straps
of towering ti plants,
garters of banana blossom
bloom heavy with expectancy
for ripened phallic fruit.

Maui is a crone-woman,
experience of centuries,
war and whaling blood,
a dry side raped of sugarcane,
a harvest of hubris, silver-tongued
developers who seduced her overnight
leaving parts of her ruined
with cheap garish tourist trysts.

Iao Valley remains the dewy maiden.
She nurtures her nubile garments,
pigmented with rainbow croton,
verdant layers, each a deeper hue.
Wet, wild with anticipation
for now-new suitors, stewards of the land,
a new calling of farmers
who work in the old way,
revere fertility but recognize her fragility,
allow her to reclaim trust,
to open her valley to them,
germinating the seeds for her future.