Rebecca Russo wrote the poem “Hiking in Hawaii” for her Spring 2026 Creative Writing for the Logic Stage course. Her instructor, Lori Huth, says “Rebecca’s poem creates a great balance of concrete, sensory details that show her actual experience of the hike and abstract reflections on the value and meaning of the hike, including how, as humans, we can be and feel both vast and tiny at the same time. My favorite moment is when she says that she sees the path covered in ants, which is a great, vivid image, but then corrects herself and realizes it’s people, a fun surprise.”

Hiking In Hawaii by Rebecca Russo

Temperatures are cool 
While walking on the rim 
Of the Kilauea Iki Crater 
All while looking in, 
The path I see below me, 
Is covered up by ants— 
But looking closer I can see, 
They’re little tiny people, 
People just like me, 
Hiking down the Iki trail, 
As I’m about to do. 
Temperatures are boiling 
Here on the crater floor. 
We walk across an unmarked path, 
A desert very different
From the forest rim. 
It gets harder to keep going 
As the sun keeps rising high, 
But finally we reach the end, 

And climb back toward the sky. 
I look back down 
And proudly think, 
“Who else can say 
That they have braved 
The Kilauea Iki Trail 
And walked the crater’s floor?”

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