for Adelaide

My friend’s daughter asks,
“Can we have a dance party?”
At 6 years old, she is all drama,
choreography, and costume.

In her room, we search for songs.
She finds one to sing that she calls sad.
The sound of her voice is strange, all in her head:
swishing seawater inside shell, the echo of everything inward.

She tells the story of two lonesome volcanoes:
one singing to himself for company,
and another who thought it was for her, rising over ocean
as sun-sprayed fire across sand to meet day.

Typing “Lava” conjures images of the Big Island,
earthquake evacuation, the backdrop of roman candles,
a planet’s molten core raging against smoky sky.
Afraid of what she’s seen, I start to explain.

She tells me that she’s already heard:
hundreds of houses burned; thousands displaced
who landed here, gemstones raining from the heavens.
She feels sorry for this, but also for lonely volcanoes.

I wonder if she knows how locals pray
to the woman who will eat the earth,
turning them to ash and stone, igneous bone.
Still, they sing, “We must accept her will.”

Between plume and steam glow flashes
of olivine and emerald edged by blackness.
Blood breaks fissures boiling from below,
spewing black upon everything that grows.

My friend’s daughter adorns us with glitter for performance.
Changing the subject and song is every child’s artistry.
We dance as receding tides flow home.
Waves spin the gold of Pele’s hair at our charred feet.