Someone, unbidden, said: go there!

What?! The other side of the globe, 5.000 miles from anywhere?

When I have a job and taxes to pay.

Joke.

So it took several years of forgetting

those moot moments of clarity.

How did that happen, come about 

for a landlubber, penny-strapped

mid-aged hobo, workaholic layabout

 - to find herself peering thru the portholes

as the plane swung out of the cloud-wrack 

around the Haleakala volcano lip,

 landing bumpily upon a surprising spec of rock,

in Lemurias’ watery aftermath

 - Oahu.

To duly pilgrim around the craters 

blackly sculpted, brand-new foothills

over its crinkly lava toes

 dipping in the ocean's creamy edges;

to ascend its switchbacking flanks

and shiver at the moon-scape there.

Then to scrabble along the NaPali cliffs 

seering like emerald blades between surf and sky

up to the lofty, mist wreathed heights 

with their plunging depths;

700ft waters-falling down bottomless russet valleys;

on to the Iravian temple refuge

where the great rose-quartz monolith stands, 

anchoring the latitudes;

incense-wreathed, decked with flowers, 

bedizened with sunbeams, 

and candlelight 

and a murmur of prayer like the sea.