Travel, Photography
Looking towards Moloka’i
Sunrise in Maui
There is a pink that happens here at sunrise and sunset. It skims the sea and lights Moloka’i on fire. It creeps up over the hills behind me and spreads its fingers across the sky, ricocheting into the ocean.
Most of the day, Moloka’i looks purpley-gray, but in the slant of the morning sun, the red dirt embedded into the furrows of the hillside ignites and dribbles down to the toe of the island. As the morning progresses, green begins to predominate, before it all slips into the shadows.
As I sit here, on my balcony, I am embraced by the sounds of dawn. Roosters run amok on this island and they wake with the first light. Another bird, one of those black and white ones whose name I do not know, calls out — do doo do doo do doo. Another unseen bird complains with staccato burst — ka koo ka koo — from the canopy of the pepper trees, which are beginning to fluoresce where the sun caresses them.
The palm trees are receiving a gilding where the tangled fronds face the light creeping up over the hillside.
I saw a turtle yesterday — a wise old girl. I’d almost given up on my search after swimming from Polo Beach all the way down to the far end of the tumble of volcanic rocks and coral beds. The wind had picked up and golden sand particles danced in the sunbeams, making it hard to see.
Beneath me, spiny urchins prickled out from the coral - inky black pin cushions. A pencil fish, as long as two of my hands slid through the glowing mix of silt and sun.
And then, just as I was almost back to the beach, she appeared — golden-shelled and seemingly as curious about me as I was about her. We danced together in the water for a few minutes. What does she think about us humans, I wonder?
What must I look like to her with my hair floating all around me and breathing through a snorkel tube? Certainly, more awkward than her. She moves effortlessly, propelled by grace.
I wonder if she watches the sunrise from beneath the gilded waves.
The sun is higher now. The snorkeling boats have anchored around the tiny island of Molokini, which floats like a little rocky crescent in front of its big sister Moloka’i. The endless skies arching over the waters here never fail to give me a shiver of awe when I glance out at the horizon. It’s the vastness, I suppose.
But nothing here leaves an imprint of both impermanence and infinite beauty in me like the sunrises on Maui.
Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies).
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Photos and story ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.
