Born in Fire

It is amazing to watch the geologic process unfold in real time in Hawaii – where I can walk from newly born land in the form of fresh lava on the Big island – to islands like Molokai where the sharp rocks have been rounded by time and are slowly being reclaimed by the sea. Millenia from now those rocks, ground to sand will eventually be subducted back to lava.

Born in fire
Black rocks aspire
To cool their souls
In salt water shoals

Rounded by time
They sing of the divine
As they patiently wait
For their inevitable fate

To be polished and worn
Into grains of sand re-born
By the oceans side
To dance with the tide

by, Jonathan Kingston

Night Sky Molokai

I was photographing this night scene a few years ago on Molokai and thinking about how the light hitting my lens had been traveling across time and space for millions of years before it arrived at my lens in this precise moment. I wrote the following words to capture the feeling of standing in a tidal flat under starlight.

Two and a half million years ago
Long before Homo Sapiens
Joined earths great show
A photon of light left Andromeda
On a day we now call Hanukkah

Racing across time and space
It’s fellow photons gave it chase
To reach the nearest solid mass
Which happened to be my camera’s glass

I hope the photons aren’t too bummed
That to my camera they have succumbed
For though my prints they are archival
I can’t guarantee another 2.5 million year survival

by, Jonathan Kingston

Point To Heaven

It took me many visits to this burned down church on the east end of the island of Molokai before I noticed the arrow pointing skyward etched into the wall where the entry gable used to be. It inspired the following words.

I once was filled with sons of men
who raised their arms to God in praise

Until brushfire kissed my walls and then
set my roof ablaze

My congregation now consists of souls less apt to sing
but whisper softly with their leaves and for companions birds they bring

My architect must have known some day my roof would fall
for in my stones he etched the path – an arrow on my wall

Its message simple yet profound
I ask you all to see

My final sermon of them all
Point to heaven constantly

by, Jonathan Kingston