And here is the first time I experienced what I consider to be the real Hawai'i; not culturally, though that is part of it, but the way that places really fascinate me – their wilderness.

Picture a bird-watching trip, on the swooping rises of Mauna Kea, clouds hugging close to it as it vanishes into the sky. Getting out of a white tour van; walking through low grass and shrubs, gazing about, trying to descry a flicker of a wing, a feather among the mamane trees. They looked dreary, with their sunlight blooms out of season, adding to the loneliness of the scene. And there we were, standing high above the lower land on the sides of an ancient volcano, chasing an elusive palila bird.

There! Over there was a dry-forest 'elepaio, plain-colored but curious in its own way. These bird-watchers did not care about how bright or pretty it was, but how rare it was, about how fascinating it – not its feathers – was. And later, the palila itself, gold-headed and bright-eyed. Calibrated to blend in with the trees, on whose seeds it fed on (poisonous enough to be fatal to most other birds, incidentally), the trees in whose branches it sheltered. They depend on the mamane, but, predictably, it and the trees are retreating up the slopes of Mauna Kea, losing ground. Oh, there was such excitement over what was really nothing but a tiny forest spirit!... My binoculars were close at hand, and I was quick to reach for them when we saw it.

It was all that we had come to that location to see; we were soon on our way again.

Next:

Ropy, black pahoe'hoe lava looping and whirling on the ground, gradually retreating under a layer of earth. And from that layer of earth sprouted golden, dry grass, and beautiful trees. 'Ohi'a lehua, nothing like what I'd expected, arching up and over the ground. Dim green leaves, like smooth coins, and bright crimson flowers, lacking obvious petals but instead looking almost furry, spindly. The trees grew thickly in some parts and stood like lonely outcasts in others, while our guide explained how you could approximate how long they'd been growing there by the thickness of their trunk.

The trail wound through this scattered forest, heading for a stand of koa trees, where our next birds would hopefully be. The ground rolled underfoot, and parts seemed almost like meadows, with the shimmering blonde grasses and dark weathered lava blending tunefully. Soon enough, we reached it. I can't remember now how long we walked for; it didn't matter to me in the least. These were the true giants of the forest, rearing to their full height in bright green clusters. As we walked under them, my impression was of light and wind and jade lace, of graceful trunks reaching for the sky and spreading their arms over us. And the birds! -

They flickered like strange, bright flames through the branches. 'I'iwi and 'apapane – both of them black and red, a strange sort of camouflage until you factor in the flowers and the rock. This, this airy cathedral through which we struggled clumsily, delayed by underbrush – this was the real Hawai'i!
Here was a different habitat: if you picture Hawai'i, or even better, a Hawai'i forest, what do you see? I know what I'd imagined before. Luscious, deep-green foliage, gorgeous blooming flowers and ferns that tumble over each other with a distinct tropical vivacity, humid, enclosed under a screen of leaves – perhaps not palm leaves, but something along those lines.

But this.

My most vivid memories of our vacation shall be this.

It was not the sum of its parts, this forest, but instead a living, breathing whole, that sighed with the wind and soaked in the eternal sunlight. It carved a home, from the solitary, scouting ferns to the establishing koa trees, in the black lava that had scourged the previous forest with molten rock. And then the smoldering sparks of life that were the birds danced through it, and the trails we made soon weathered a path through it, and I could touch the sky there, standing on its floor.

A powerful creation this was...

And again, the eternal side note when you are in the wilderness – the lehua trees were endangered, the koa ecosystems fading. In fact, I suppose the whole thing was fading to the archetypal tropical paradise... And it was created by people that thought showy flowers were more beautiful than the koa trees!

(Perhaps the imaginary tropics did not, in the strictest sense, take the place of them, but certainly they diverted attention...)

Too soon, too soon, it was time for us to leave the forest. We had found our birds; time to go. The inevitable, though brief, discussion of its endangerment led to a dim shadow for me. I wish now that I could have spent a night there, just one night, to see how it was when the stars were out and it was silvery sifting moonlight, not the powerful gold sun, that lit its branches up. I wish many things, and among them that I, and all who come after, shall have another chance to visit the forest.

I wish for the koa trees, for Hawai'i, to stay true.

But most of all – to stay.