Event at Mauna Loa

A fallen seed
from yesternight's bright flower
tumbles amid discarded husks
and humbled trees before
the crimson river's splayed
and crackling knees.
The red flood drags its dense
demented wake--seething,
heaving, blacktopping
root and reed.
Bedfellows strange beneath
the field--cinder and seed.
However deep the bed,
at some appointed hour,
with waft of dew and brush of light
fanning desire,
the seed commands its pavement dome.
It gives.
And, as all hope by hope is healed,
the flower lives.