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
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