Tall Cliff Over Water

got here by boat.

no leaving this hut except
for a twelve hour hike,
over hills, through the forest,
past the broken lighthouse.
(we were our own guides here).

i see two german girls,
one with dark brown, sgraggled hair,
tied low in a pony, the other's scalp
covered in twisted blonde coils.

they are friends,
maybe sometimes lovers
(at this moment in time,
they only have each other).
they are beauty, and my father sees it,
snaps photos of the sun on their faces,
instead of the water lapping strong
against the stacked, jagged rock.

a cliff without boundaries,
with a grassy knoll right to the edge,
where the smell of the sea was strong,
and the thought of drowning after falling
stood right before you in the fierceness of the waves,
the steady loud of the wind,
the great unknown of what lay waiting
underneath the aqua surface,

(maybe this is where i learned
to be afraid of heights).

we thought we were alone in the place
until these two showed up.
got driven here in a boat by a man who
must have been native.

the girls traveled with us for days,
all crammed in the back of the rental car,
me smelling the aroma of unwashing that came
from their hairy pits,
i breathed it, was shocked by it,
and then breathed it again.

they turned us on to banana chips and foreign accents,

taught my father to relax
amongst three young kids,
taught us all how to share our bed,
our meals, our lives with total strangers.

we learned together how to discover this kiwi land,
how to treat the locals without giving them cash.

the canadian man, with his three small kids,
who traveled with them graciously,
across this fruited paradise;
gave them a lift, when they were tired of hiking,
spent all morning tying their things to the top of the car,
so they could come along for the ride.
i wonder if they remember.