Lahaina Noon

By Guinotte Wise

A tropical sun in July and May
on something perpendicular
throws no shadow at high noon
and that’s true Lahaina Noon
I saw it at Kaanapali and saw
it on the dock at the gas pump,
no shadow on the rough planks
nor at the base of a bare mast 
of a trimaran, tied there. I saw
it on Front Street looking at 
a lack of shadow on a bright
day. It passes like a penumbra
but defines things in a surreal
heart-stopping way for minutes
if you pay attention. If not, it
is just a moment in time for a
tourist who enters a gallery or
an air-conditioned restaurant and
misses the point of tropic noon,
misses the phenomenal, a lack
of something that belongs here.
Something that is missing like
a morning paper undelivered.

Guinotte Wise writes and welds steel sculpture on a farm in Resume Speed, Kansas. His short story collection (Night Train, Cold Beer) won publication by a university press and enough money to fix the soffits. Six more books since. A 5- time Pushcart nominee, his fiction, essays and poetry have been published in numerous literary journals including Atticus, The MacGuffin, Southern Humanities Review, Rattle and The American Journal of Poetry. His wife has an honest job in the city and drives 100 miles a day to keep it. (Until shelter in place order) Some work is at http://www.wisesculpture.com