Fresh Water

Our ship stopped at Hilo, Hawaii, but not for very long… the ship moored at about ten this morning and set sail to leave at six. That was one of the things about this trip that bothered me the most, upon reading the itinerary – we wouldn’t have much time to explore much of anything. But it was a good day; the short trip inland brought us to Akaka Falls. We didn’t stay very long, but there are times when actual time matters little; the nature of waking consciousness makes the passage of time relative, and I’m glad that somehow or other, I managed to make the most of it.

It was overcast and raining slightly the whole day. Not surprising, given that we’d been told it rains for two-thirds of the year on the Big Island. Most of the passengers were somewhat disappointed, though if you know me well enough by now, you’d have guessed it didn’t bother me at all. The intermittent on-and-off drizzle came unaccompanied by fog or haze, leaving my sightseeing relatively unspoiled, and I smiled as the warm Hawaiian rain dappled my face while never quite soaking through my clothes.

Hawaii’s a green place, full of accidental beauty. Nothing at Akaka falls seemed out of place, the entire region looking as though some inspired but inebriated landscaper had haphazardly planted the most beautiful trees and flowers and left them to grow out of control. Back home, our golden hills, when viewed up close, are revealed to be vast expanses of dead weeds, full of burrs and thorns and crackling with the ominous latent potential of a massive fire hazard. But here in Hawaii, no glance anywhere revealed anything that one would have wished to remove. The banyan trees cast their roots downward towards the rich soil, creating a sort of one-tree jungle, hanging with moisture and inviting the imagination, branches and roots and limbs so numerous and confused that the brain has trouble processing it all. Huge red and purple flowers crane their way through moist ferns and between stalks of cane, each one a reflection of the regal but tropical beauty instantly suggestive of so many things Hawaiian.

The trail led to a vantage point looking across a great gorge to Akaka Falls, where the water of a small river takes a plunge four-hundred feet down a cliff face of black rock to land in the lagoon below. I’ve seen bigger, taller falls from a distance in Yosemite. And Akaka Falls is but a trickle compared to Niagara, of course… but these falls were rendered uncommonly lovely by the landscape and by the view. In nature, the grandiose and the unique each have a claim to beauty, and why not? The same is true of people; the stately and the flamboyant are attractive in obvious ways, while the demure and the unassuming may be equally lovely.

The waters that leapt from the top of the falls didn’t cascade downwards as a steady torrent of roaring vertical rapids, too thick to be seen through. The flow wasn’t quite generous enough to generate that particular kind of spectacle. Rather, the water flowed evenly from the top but quickly separated into nearly-distinct quantities of water whipped into white mist by the descent. It tumbled in layers over itself, sometimes reaching terminal velocity and sometimes not, buffeted by breeze and air resistance that caused parts of it to blow backwards against gravity. This created clouds of mist that billowed and drifted away from other, larger masses of water that continued the plunge to the lagoon. The splash of the falls entering the lagoon itself could be heard, gentle and distant, but was obscured by spreading clouds of mist that washed away from the entry point like insubstantial waves breaking upon the shore.

No expert in fluid mechanics, I stopped trying to think about the interplay of gravity and aerodynamics that made the sight of Akaka falls what it was. I watched a sheet of water take flight from the top of the falls, watched as it took the shape of a phoenix diving headfirst for the bottom in a revivifying death plunge worthy of the bird’s mythical destiny. The breeze and wind teased the phoenix’s wings outward from its body, rippling in flight, being consumed and created anew as the winds blasted them into hanging clouds of white fire and ephemeral sprays of silvery ash that evaporated instantly and erratically into the warm Hawaiian air. Even as the phoenix’s wings disappeared into the air, they unfurled over and over again, pulled and drawn from its body, flickering back into life, a miniature version of the phoenix’s own greater life cycle. Its descent was traced by a series of angular inscriptions carved naturally into the rock face, rectangular geometric patterns outlined by the splash and trickle of smaller waters that make their way down the rock face instead of leaping over it. These runes and the water gushing within were too distant to be seen in detail; rather, they seemed to shine as though intermittently illuminated by a silver searchlight in the rain, cryptically heralding the phoenix’s mighty passage. As a symbol of rebirth, it wreaked no devastation in its wake; the black rocks of the falls were covered in greenery, and all the surroundings were green and full of life. This phoenix brings life, not death… a symbol of the power to nurture and create, of sustaining sacrifices instead of fire and destruction. I begin to wonder if the true phoenix is indeed a creature of water, not fire – a mirage born of the burning sands of the desert, made real by some natural miracle.

It disappears into the roiling clouds of billowing vapor below and is no more. Transformed into a cool, comforting mist of fresh water, it hangs in the air, looking comforting, cool, and reinvigorating. I’m wishing I could go down to the lagoon and wade through those waters. I look upwards, back to the top of the falls, where the phoenix is reborn, one amongst many, gathering speed for another great dive past the runes of the rockface.

We only stayed at the falls for about ten minutes. It seemed so much longer. Thank goodness for that.