Having Lost Clarity

 

It is something I can never do again:

Write fresh from the moment that she told me

How she had waken early to see the moon

Shine upon my face while I was asleep.

It would be like those years of pilgrimage

To my old school when I used to stand

On familiar corners near familiar

Buildings waiting for the memories of friends

To console me, but the time I stood there last,

They never came and have not returned

Since then. I will not try again to paste

Together pieces of memories burned

Over time nor try to retrieve poems that mattered

When ages have passed since the words scattered.

February, 1989

A Fool’s Love

  

He murmured to her that her hands were perfect.

Recoiling, she rejected him as a fool for saying that.

Didn’t he see how short, ragged her nails were?

So brittle, they wouldn’t grow long like those models

On television, plus her thumbs were stumps.

Besides, her skin was too dark, not just her hands,

But all over her body. So she married a guy

She thought she loved even though he never

Praised any part of her and several years later

As she dried the dishes she gazed at her aging hands

Now wrinkled, and contemplated for a moment

What it would have been to love a fool.

March 2011

Driftwoood

My mother had always been fond of driftwood.

Whenever we went to any ocean shore

Or lake she’d float up and down the beach looking

For water’s discards.

It was the sentiment of those tree fragments

Stripped of their bark, tiny wormholes piercing

Them like emptied capillaries, which appealed

To her sense of time.

Perhaps they came from giant maple fallen

Into some distant tributary far north

Of us in Washington two decades ago,

Stranded just for her.

Some child could have broken a branch from an oak

To send a gnarled boat tumbling down currents

Of the San Joaquin, polished by granite stones

From Yosemite.

Or a cedar’s lofty top, weakened by wind,

Could have toppled into the Sultan River

Bobbed its way to the Pacific and so down

To the Point Reyes sand.

She saved these wandering orphans of the sea

When my brothers and sisters were young.

I used to look at them but not think how far

We would drift from her.

May 27, 1988

How a Smile Becomes a Poem

Like this poem, because it began after I passed

A woman on campus. She must have been over sixty,

But in good health, wearing a straw hat

Over her long graying hair and smiling to herself.

I knew the woman was smiling about a memory;

About her memory of the end of her childhood

Fifty three years ago on her second trip to Sandy Beach

When Ryan held her hand for the first time.

Her face has changed since then. Her smile

Is more knowing and the look in her eye

Does not have a focus for the present but for 1949.

She hears the voices of Alfred Apaka and the McGuire

Sisters floating through the salty mist, east of Aina

Haina. She had known Ryan for three years, thought

Him handsome only since last Easter, never

Thought he would touch her, or go to Korea in four years.

They never found his body. She found a husband

Three years after, lost him to that Myra woman.

Now she walks again on Sandy Beach with Ryan

He is laughing at her hat and she is still smiling.

March 2007

Boys’ Day, 2004

I asked my mother if she wanted Koi flags

For their home in Sacramento on May fifth.

Although she was the mother of three sons,

She declined, telling

Me that this was never something she had

Wanted to do. Perhaps it was because

Her own father had had no sons, never flew Koi

Before or after

The war. Never envied neighborhood boys

Their banners. She never saw the wind buoying

The red, yellow or blue fish fluttering

Proudly in the wind

Not until I read about my grandmothers’

Birthplace, did I first know of carp flying for sons.

Yet I never wondered why no fish flew for me

Until my first year

In Hawai‘i when I saw so many Koi

Flags fly. Having no sons myself, I now wait

Patiently for the grandson who will let me

Know the feel of fish.

November, 2004

To My Daughters at 12

There is no bridge to help you move safely to our side

Of life, where dreams stay in your sleep and imagination

Is only a slogan.  Still, you will find your way across

Even if I could cry a river of tears deep enough to block

Your crossing, yet

I fear what may happen as you both dive headlong

Into these waters stirred with the churning turbulence

Of your ripening. What your mother has done is best,

For she has submerged you, asked you to swim.

I watch you in the pools

Of Mililani, cavorting like twin dolphins, making more

Progress in a few minutes than I have made in a lifetime

Of struggling to stay afloat.  Someday, there will be no ocean

Too vast for you to cross.

March 2001

Faith

For my parents on the occasion of their 50th Wedding Anniversary,

He puts on the dress uniform that reveals

His belief in fighting for a nation

That has imprisoned his mother’s family

Against the nation

In which his father had hoped to raise his sons

Fifty years before this day, the seventeenth

Of February, 1945.

She is a thousand

Miles from her father’s family, putting

On the only nice dress she has.  It’s not white

But a purity drifts from the sky, dressing

The ceremony

In my mother’s belief that my father will

Endure, not the war, but the peace of a home

That neither of them will create; five children,

Unpredictable;

And the kinds of touches that mean everything

Only to those who endure.  So they walk

Through their beliefs silent to each other,

Silent to their selves

About what happens next.  Vows, tears, friends, and rice

Follow them beyond the church.  Fifty years

Later, it has all come true, proof that belief

Is the same as Faith.

February, 1995

Ages Ago

It may be in the bob of a lock or in the sway of a walk

That you see someone who beckons you in a familiar way.

It may be in the glint of an earring long out of fashion

Or a way of glancing that reminds you of a mood

You first encountered ages ago, when you were not so certain

Of yourself and looked to your friend for guidance.

There she was, sharing the quaking of adolescence

With you as though you had no one else to tally

Your fears. How long has it been since you saw her?

Now your face has those creases you’ve earned

By your maturity and those bobbing locks are stained

Like the ocean’s waves as they crest upon the beaches

Out here, thousands of miles from where you first dared

To think that your father was a fool and she told you

That you were right. And these faces remind you that time does

Not erase youth. It only buries it under a ton of memories.

December, 2005

If I Had Died

If I had died at 22

I would have been buried in the ground,

In the black soil of Sacramento,

In which I had toiled for my father.

My casket would have been surrounded

With relatives consoling my mother

And my friends, all younger than me,

Not believing in death.

Unmourned by descendents

I would now be a vague memory.

If I had died at 45

Borne away from my daughters

Before they got to know me,

They would never have come to believe

In God even after moving back to Hawai`i

With their mother and His consolation

All around them in the palms and water.

My first poems would have survived me.

Perhaps in them, my children would know

Him by the time they understood Death.

If I had died at 61,

Not quite old enough to not have died

Too young, my ashes would have been

Scattered on the Pacific to wash

Upon the beaches at Pismo, Shillshoe

And Lanikai where my younger feet

Had left no marks for anyone to follow.

My daughters will need to tell

Their children to seek me in the sky

Where poets amble.

Ken Tokuno

April, 2013

Haka Mairu

I never met my great grandfather.

He died the year I was born,

But for years later, I would visit

His grave with my grandparents

To tend his memory with flowers,

Cleanse his tombstone with water

No one ever spoke of his habits,

Whether he liked beer with his dinner

Or what Japanese folk tales he told;

Whether he played Go with his son-in-law

Or went on fishing trips with him

To the grey mountains of Nevada.

But I knew him through his daughter

And her sad eyes as she trimmed

The carnations to grace his grave.

When my grandmother died

She was interred not far from both

Her parents. I would visit her

Grave with my daughters

To tend her memory with flowers,

Cleanse her tombstone with water.

I hope that I will get to know

My grandchildren so that they will

See that I do not like beer with my dinner,

That I wanted to learn how to play Go,

Would rather eat fish than go fishing.

Then they will come to that place

Where I rest and watch my daughters

Tend my memory with flowers;

Cleanse my tombstone with water.

May, 2013

Little

The little dove hovered in the girders

Of our prefabricated shed.

We could hear its wings pealing

Against the aluminum siding

Dad was able to snare it, wedged

In a corner between two metal plates

And his calloused hands

Which caressed the little feathers

I asked what we were going to do

With it as he bent its neck

Gently back over a little bucket

And plucked a few feathers away.

He said we could cook it

Like a squab and took his pocket

Knife to nick a little slit

In the exposed skin of the neck.

Blood seeped out in little drops

Like red tears, By the time

The dove relaxed in his hand

There wasn’t much in the bucket.

He gave it to me to pluck off

All of the dull gray feathers.

I remember how warm that still

Little body felt in my hands,

How unyielding each feather

Was, especially on the wings

And, when I was finished,

How little there was left.

Though I took it to mother to cook

I was glad that I never saw

The little squab upon our table.

How could I have eaten it?

Revised, July 2013

Fishing

Japanese eats lots of fish, since it’s surrounded

By water. “Fish or die.” my father used to say,

But I found fishing boring. Dad’d drag

Us to these tiny rancid tributaries, teeming

With mosquitoes, dribbling into the Feather River.

I never caught anything.

Neither did my brothers.

But once, when she was ten, my sister, Shira,

Caught a perch. She was so happy over the look

In her father’s eyes, where I saw only

Disappointment in his sons’ failure to catch

Anything. Still, he hooked the gills with a branch

To anchor it in the water.

It kept it fresh for eating.

Shira admired her trophy for thirty seconds

Until she saw the fry swimming nearby

The gasping perch, a momma fish she guessed.

The babies were mourning their trapped mother

So she began to cry for her mortal sin. I looked

At my two younger brothers.

We just shrugged. Girls.

Perch are good to eat, so my mother did cook it.

No one of us wanted to eat the little thing,

So it went into the dog’s dish the next day.

Twenty years later, to my surprise, Shira

Remembers that it was me who caught

The fish and that I ate it with great relish.

For her sake, I wish it had been me.

March, 2008

Elkhorn Ferry

Our truck clung to the step ramp on the levee

As we waited for our turn onto the ferry,

Meandering from the Yolo County side

Of the Sacramento River. My father

And I did this about twice a year, when junk

Piled high enough on our farm to warrant a trip

To the Woodland landfill. The shortest way there

Was on that ferry, country road all the way

Except for that slow crossing of the River.

Once on board, I’d get out, look into the depths

Of the current forever or watch the cable

Grind the ferry along in its jerky rhythms.

I left for college crossing on that ferry.

Two years later, a sleek freeway bridge was there,

Cars moving fast enough above the River

That the passengers would not even see it

Although I don’t get through there as often

In my aged days, I see the River whenever I cross it,

Slow to the pace I used to travel in my youth,

Watch the water flow to a place of peace.

June 2007

The Last Time I Saw Donna

Diana’s edge of light was mournfully small

Above late evening’s horizon

As she and I watched the coffee drip slowly

Into the carafe until she could pour

The filtered burnt sienna fluid.

It struggled to the brim.

She fit a spoon into her hand

And stirred below the steam rising

Toward the kitchen lamp.

Motes of sugar and powdered cream

Strayed upon the saucer.

She brushed the sugar dust

And wistful flakes of whitener

On the saucer with her sleeve,

Some flecks took refuge in the weave.

The moon that graced her cup failed

To guide her lips to anything

But the darkness that she drank.

In my pale place I stared

At the swirls I stirred.

All the words that I had stored.

Did not spill beyond my drink

And I had to bite down on a sigh.

Her thoughts may have crept

Down to the table, but could not cross

The ceramic brink,

The valley of her empty cup.

Revised, May 2013

Cheryl's Clutter

There’s a ruptured watch somewhere

In that drawer. I remember wearing it

When Eric and I went to Calaveras

The glass is scratched and cracked

‘Cause I was never careful where I swirled

My arms, but it worked well when he and I

Wandered through the redwoods. I don’t know

Why it stopped at eight o’clock

But I never took it to be fixed.

Here’s the program from a game that Glenn

And I once saw. I remember our team lost

But the cover’s gone where I wrote the final score,

It’s smudged, see? That’s his fingerprint.

There’s a faint stain on page nine

Below an ad for champagne, but it’s not a

Champagne stain.

I shouldn’t cling to any of this clutter.

It isn’t doing anyone any good; me the least.

It just takes up space and my place

Is small enough as it is.

Even this coat. I never even wear it anymore.

See the catsup clot on the sleeve?

I had it on that February when it was almost new.

I should have dry cleaned it then.

Now I guess it is too late for that.

I should toss it out, except that Dave

Gave it to me for Christmas.

January 17, 1988