Novices, we dressed and drove out,
first to the crater rim, Uwekahna
a canyon and sea of ash and moonstone,
the hardened, grey back of Leviathan
steaming and venting, dormant under cloud-cover.
And then next down Volcano Road past the villages
to Hirano Store on Kilauea’s long plateau.
There, over canefield and the hardened lava land,
all we saw was in each other’s eyes-
the mind’s fear and the heart’s delight,
running us this way and that.