Thursday, March 12, 2009

Hokule'a dreaming

Hokule'a is a quarter of the way to Palmyra, more or less, as this is written.

How many of the hundreds of former crew members went out to look at the stars since the departure and imagined what the crew was experiencing?

I did. Faced hema, found steering stars and put myself on board.

In the quiet night, riding the sweep, holding a star at a point in the rigging.

Keeping a backup steering star on the other side of the canoe, for when clouds obscured the first.

Feeling the wind.

Hearing whispered conversations, water moving against the hull, wind in the shrouds.

Bodies moving on deck in the moonlight, then disappearing into the lua, into their bunks, onto the aft trampolines.

Squalls rolling through, wet and cold.

But nobody on board would be anywhere else.

Nowhere else on Earth.

©2009 Jan TenBruggencate