The Story is Told in Paint Strokes...

Image courtesy of Magpie Tales/Smoldering Fires, Clarence Holbrook Carter, 1904-2000
Columbus Museum of Art

To Ahulani, Long Gone But Still Cherished, On Mother’s Day

The likeness was painted a long time ago.

The mountain was on fire, but that’s just background:

a setting for a portrait.  In this tableau

you cannot see the truth which an artist found

but if you knew the story, it might astound.

After years in the shadows of smoky peaks

she found the baby, with his pink chubby cheeks… 

but no one around knew who the small boy was

except that apparently someone left him

to fend for himself. And she said, “Just because

you’ve no name - perhaps abandoned on a whim? - 

it doesn’t mean you should lack.  Life shan’t be grim.

‘Little Boy from the Mountain of Fire,’ I

take you as my own.  Ohana.  ‘Til I die.”

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Process notes: The form is Rime Royal Sonnet.  The painting reminded me of a place in Hawaii, but viewed in a lens from long ago. The poem was penned in honor of mothers everywhere - especially since Mother's Day is this coming Sunday.