I was in Hawaii, where I had dinner on the beach with a quiet, grinning man, who started telling me about all the fish in the waters around us. After a while he just chanted the names of the fish, and we sat there by guttering candlelight, amazed at the artistry of the Creator. My friend sang the fish for a long time and concluded by saying, “But the best to eat are ahi, au, aweoweo, kumu, moilii, ono, and uku,” at which point we ordered ahi.
Later I was standing in the sun in front of a tattered grocery store, holding fresh pineapples like prickly footballs, when a bird the size of a tent sailed over, and I gaped and said to a tiny man next to me, “Man, what was that?”
“That is iwa, the frigate bird, which you rarely see over this parking lot, though sometimes we do. We also have here the i’iwi and o’u’ and nukupu, who are honeycreepers, and ulili, the little tattler who wanders, and elepaio, the flycatcher, and huna kai, the sanderling—her name means ocean foam. And of course you know nene, the goose. There is one over there under the crown flower tree, see?”
“Yes, sir, I see. Thank you, thank you so much,” I said, and he wandered off, smiling. I stood there for a long time, thinking that the language of the love of God comes in more colors and shapes and melodies than we could ever count.
