Moon RabbitThere is nothing more life affirming than the great release of an inner spirit, awakened truly from the deepest recesses of the soul whilst I wade barefoot on the water’s edge at Ala Moana just as the Hawaiian island sun has rested for the evening under the blanket of the far off ocean horizon where the heavens, like a scattering of broad pastel ribbons of pinks and oranges, meets the world and slowly softens and dims into a serene blue-black oneness as night falls. Entranced by the gentle lapping of the salty ocean waters rolling upon twilight cooled golden sand and the not too distant crashing of waves at the lava boulder breakers offshore, I lose myself and become the nature I’m seeing, smelling, hearing, feeling. I close my eyes and with arms outstretched in welcoming acceptance of all that surrounds me, a brave summon to the gods that created this nature to blend into me, I taste the sweetness of the breeze that gives life to the palm trees dancing, sheltering the beach and park from the bustling boulevard behind, elegantly moving in celebration of the life of the land and sea that gave birth to me.
I stand, alone, in cool water up to my knees, illumined by the eerie soft glow of Honolulu city lights to the west and the towering hotels of Waikiki in the east with flaming torches lining its Kalakaua Avenue and its seaside side streets. Behind me, behind the park of banyans, hibiscus and palms is the towering manmade seaside mountain of concrete dressed in decoratively twisted metals, steel and copper, and thick plates of glass pieced together like a hardened quilt reflecting the darkened sapphire of the Hawaiian evening sky they scrape. I’ve escaped its noise, observing it from the sanctuary of the natural that it has not yet replaced at the shoreline. I pray it never does. It’s a bustling cityscape of condominiums, executive office buildings, shopping malls, Longs Drugs stores and boutique shops engaged in the life of modern Pacific commerce, the collective wealth that drives contemporary Hawaiian living. Clogging the highways and byways of Oahu, Acuras and Hondas, Mini Coopers, Beetles and Jettas take us to work here, take us to play here. Overhead the rudeness of jetliners, some emblazoned with liveries illustrating a red crane rising like the Japanese imperial sun, stream over the reefs bringing the tourists from far away lands: Australia, Canada, China, Japan, the mainland—they pay for the progress. There is a tinge of sadness in the audaciousness and brightness of this modernity. Natural Hawaiiana dressed in unnatural Americana, thousands of years of commerce of Aloha traded for commerce of the dollar.
Despite the beauty, seething underneath the fresh metropolitan gilding and embellishments that renders a feeling for the ancient Hawaii that never was, the ancient Hawaii that was stolen from its peoples, ideals faked by the Hawaii State Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism is grime and muck covered over with fresh paint, koa wainscot, and lauhala wallpaper, a scattering of potted orchids and bird of paradise, ponds of imported koi swimming around green lily pads. The stench of which is as stagnant as the rotting guava and mango, fallen off trees, smashed under cars on a Kalihi gravel alley, laying under the moist, humid shade of trees, soaking in sluggish rainwater and putrid, decaying leaves, breeding maggots.
I take pleasure in this evening escape from all that covered rotting.
Breathe. I breathe in deeply and take pleasure in the natural, savoring its moods, its every sensory appeal. I feel the cold sand underwater, burying my feet in it, wiggling my toes. It sends a quiver up my body; it doesn’t shock but rather calms, and I relish the composed tranquility of the sensation. With the kiss of a droplet of ocean water splashed upon my cheek, carried by the wind from a breaking wave smashing across a lava boulder a short distance away, I give in and fall back. I let the lapping waves envelope me, envelope my body from head to toe, floating, face upwards staring up at the starry twinkling of the celestial coverlet above. A full moon appears from behind a drifting cloud. “There you are,” I gasp rapt by its lunar radiance as the current inches me closer to the beach sands.
In Hawaii, there is no man in the moon. But there’s an old Japanese tale brought over by impoverished Issei laboring in red dirt amidst the hardened stalks of sugarcane and sweetening pineapple.
There was once an old couple living in a plantation shed. They were so poor, with barely enough to sustain them. At their age, planting and maintaining the vegetable garden has become just too hard. The crudely built shed had begun to deteriorate in dust and dirt, blowing in through the broken door and holes in the rusting aluminum sheet of a roof, as the most common household chores, like the gardening, wasn’t easy anymore.
In order to survive the cold of the winter drafts that rattle the home each night, the old man swung a cloth bag over his hunched back to trek into the woods up the plantation road to cut some wood for a fire. As he stooped to pick up a fallen branch, the perfect size and shape to slowly burn through a night unattended, he saw a small creature struggling in panic, caught in a rickety, rusting metal trap. It was a rabbit.
“In Hawaii? Can’t be!” the old man wheezed, surprised as he thought there weren’t any wild rabbits in Hawaii.
The old man inched closer, and with his arthritic hands fumbled with the trap and released the frightened rabbit, which jumped from the teeth of the snare meant for wild pua’a, paused, looked back at the old man, and then sprung from his haunches to disappear in the darkness of the woods. The old man licked the blood from his pricked finger and continued to gather wood. After filling his bag, he paced slowly guided by the light of the moon, down back to the old shed.
The next evening, sitting outside the door of the shed, over an open fire, the old woman began to stir a pot of rice gruel, seasoned with a bit of salt given to them by the Korean pair down the road as well as a handful of slivers of onion from the garden of the younger Filipino worker, next door. It was often a habit to share in these plantation camps. Just as the old woman wafted the simple sweet scent of rice boiling, she saw a young boy staring from behind the red torch ginger growing at the corner of the house.
“Eh, boy!” the old woman beckoned with a toothy smile. “Where you come from? You like taste?” she invited the boy in her broken Pidgin English.
The boy inched close, looking frightened. There was something odd about the boy’s features, his red eyes, his soft hands, and his brand of gentle timidity seemed unnatural even for a seven-year-old. Seven-year-olds are usually shy anyway but the boy’s shame seemed different for some reason.
The old woman ladled a little bit of the rice into a bowl, wiped a spoon with her dirty and torn cotton apron, and tapped on the front steps of the shed motioning the boy to sit. She handed the bowl to the boy who devoured every grain of rice and every drop of broth.
“Where you come from?” the old woman crouched in front of him, staring into the boy’s eyes. Just then the old man, looking weary and aching from sixteen hours of picking pineapple, hobbled into the yard.
“What we have here?” he asked as he kissed his wife on her head, covered with a blue cloth and tied below the chin. He bent down and crouched alongside his wife and looked at the boy.
“Where your mama and papa?”
The boy shook his head.
“Where you live?”
The boy shrugged.
“I don’t t’ink he talks,” the old woman turned to her husband. Then the boy bit his lip and began to speak.
“If you let me live with you, I can help you here. I can clean, I can wash dishes, and I can wash clothes. Let me care for your garden. I can grow you eggplant, carrots and cabbage. I can take care of you. I’m young and I don’t eat much. I can sleep on the floor.”
The old man took hold of his wife’s hand and gave it a light squeeze. He then helped her up and they whispered to each other.
“I go make your bed,” the old woman said to the boy and just as she walked into the shed, she kissed the boy on his head.
The old couple and the young boy lived together happily. The boy did all the chores so the old man and woman could have much needed rest in their old age. The garden blossomed and burgeoned and there was always food on the table when the old man came home from working in the fields. During the cold of winters, the young boy trekked up into the mountainsides and found wood for the fires that kept them warm. As the years passed, the couple grew older. Eventually, the old man couldn’t carry his usual load of pineapples and the Luna fired him. To add insult to injury, there came a drought and the garden died. What little money they had to buy food was now gone, and so was the garden that they had hoped would sustain them.
One night, by the light of a full moon, the young boy, now fifteen years old, cowered in his corner of the shed, hugging his rice husk-filled pillow, and covering himself in white sheets smelling of the bleach he soaked them in before they dried in the sunshine. He sobbed quietly as he stroked the soft, blond hairs on his arm. He made an important decision.
The boy got up and walked out into the yard where the old man and old woman were boiling rice for dinner; it was the last of their food. The boy wiped a tear and said, “Remember that night you went up the road to gather wood? Remember what you saw?”
The old man took a minute to think and then his eyes, turning to the boy, widened as he remembered.
“I was the rabbit you set free,” the boy said before the old man could say anything. “You have been so good to me all these years, taking me in and raising me as if I was your own child.”
The old woman stood up and hugged the boy, squeezing him tightly, breathing him in saying, “You are our son.”
“Because you have done so much for me, I want to do one last thing for you before I leave.”
“Leave?!” the old man yelped.
“I must leave,” the young boy cried. “I must do one more thing for you. You must eat… me.”
With that, the young boy turned back into a rabbit whereupon he was grabbed by the old woman and stroked him gently with such love.
“We cannot eat you! You’re our son!” the old woman wailed.
The rabbit then jumped into the pot of boiling water.
The old man and woman embraced each other, crying into each other’s shoulders when they noticed the steam billowing from the pot rose up into the sky and trailed into the bright full moon. The moon slowly transformed and now they could see in its face, the silhouette of their son, the rabbit, stirring a pot of rice.
From that day on, the old couple never felt hunger and never felt loneliness as their son continued to watch over them as he did when he walked among them. The old couple died years later in old age as most people would like to die, without need for anything.
“There you are,” I gasped again at the sight of the moon, in its mysterious luster, its magical brilliance, as I lay bobbing in the waters off Ala Moana Beach.
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