In Memory of My Late Mother and Father
They courted in the
desolation
Of a relocation camp in Utah
Near a town named as the
birthstone
Of their first son who would
be born
Four Novembers from when
they met.
Both were children of
immigrants,
Travelling east to seek
western dreams.
Now they carried their
parents’ hopes
Away from the west coast in
thin paper
Sacks and hurriedly packed
suitcases.
He was proud in the kind of
way
That showed in each stride
he took
Against the hot wind from
the desert
And in the manner he held
his head
Tilted neither up or down.
She had the repressed
brilliance
Of a star that had been
taken too soon
From a constellation. Her
nineteen
Years had all been spent in
one place,
Closed in rosebuds in her
father’s nursery.
There were enough stars in
Utah’s skies
To burn through cold
floodlights
On that last day in December
When he came to escort her
to the New
Year’s Dance in the dining
hall.
The intense suspension of
their lives
Must have hung those early
hours
Like the morning star seems
to stay
Longer after sunrise than it
should.
So it was eons later that
they wed
In Minnesota, far enough
from home
That it must have seemed odd
for them
To have rice strewn upon
their path.
But my brothers and sisters
and I
Ate enough rice in the years
after
To count a grain for each of
the stars
In California skies far from
Utah.
No comments:
Post a Comment