At the edge of cane fields we stop, then run between the rows
Sun behind us, sky before us, storm-violet
fields green and red earth. Black cows low,
plod across clay. Ghosts wander the sugar stalks,
whisper, grab handfuls of leaves, pull and shake them
startling cowbirds out of furrows. We pick up sea glass
hear the surf, calls of gulls. The sugarcane
stands dense, only stopping where lava cliffs
drop off, falling towards cinder cones and jagged rock
where tides push forward, haul back black sand streaked with
red fifty feet below.

In the cane fields we gather shells, upturned by plows and roots
Once the waves rose, gods hurling sea animals like stones
against mountainsides where they dried and died to feed the sugar.
We say: in sweetness, death.  Ghosts of field workers sing hoarsely
in Chinese, a slow faint song like the shed of feathers mid-flight.
A piece of willowware, chipped from a porcelain dish, white china stained
sunburnt, blue glaze translucent as veins. Once these ghosts in flesh
huddled in this thick brush with bowls of rice.