Kimiko's Doll

“She looks like she’s in pain.” Is what I said 

The first time I saw her photograph. 

My aunt, who had brought the picture 

With her from Japan, laughed in agreement. 

The lady in the picture was Kimiko, 

My grandfather’s second wife. My aunt 

Had only just met her. He had married her 

After he returned to Japan, after my grandmother 

Had died, after he realized that he still needed 

A woman to serve his tea hot and mend the socks 

 He wore out walking to his fishing spot 

Every day. When unusually persistent rains 

Kept him from fishing all winter, He died. 

Kimiko died soon after him due 

To the meaningless she then confronted, 

But not before I met her when I was in Kebara 

To say my first farewells to my ancestry. 

She would not let me go that easily. 

She gave me an elaborate doll, a geisha, 

That must have cost half her monthly income. 

The doll holds a warrior’s helmet, as if readying 

To place it over a samurai’s top-knot, 

Perhaps the same way that Kimiko presented 

My grandfather’s tackle box each day 

Before he battled the fish. I can imagine 

Her chopping off the heads of the fish 

For the evening meal, musing over what 

It might have been like for her male ancestors 

To ride over rivers toward war, leaving her 

Grandmother’s mother behind to tend dolls. 

I have kept that doll, now in my daughter’s 

Room. Jamie likes it, even though Kimiko died

Twenty years before she was born. It tells 

Her that her female ancestors were warriors 

At heart and that she has every reason to be the same.

Kaneohe Down

My wife’s father was fond of Hawai`i’s birds,

Scattering seeds for the mejiro and sparrows 

At the mall or the beach, rescuing mynah birds 

Ensnared in those plastic loops they manufacture 

To hold cans, training the doves in his neighborhood 

To cross his threshold and become his house guests 

For a few moments of bird seed and curious cooing. 

After he left us last March, taking flight in a night, 

Diane would still see his strut in old Filipino men 

Disembarking from the bus in Mililani or hear him 

Clucking among the murmurings of the old Japanese 

Men within his old flock at Ala Moana Shopping Center, 

All the while he lay locked underneath the ground. 

So when she found his old hair brush a full year 

Later, she realized one way to release him to the sky. 

We took the brush to Ala Moana Beach, plucked 

It clean and set his feathers in the ocean to drift 

In the surf below the pigeons and the white egrets 

Wheeling above the reef, just below the stars.

A Sign of Age

I close my eyes and feel my body rove 

Beyond me. It is something old, something 

Uncomfortable surrounding me. It moves 

By tremors created at my fringes 

When I stand, eyes closed, I almost topple, 

Would topple if I did not open my eyes 

To stand. It is as if my eyes operate 

As my only anchors to this life, 

Shut them permanently and I would die, 

Yet, in sleep, I still dream of youth, moving 

Myself in all directions without my eyes 

Opened. It is not perchance like dying 

And I would not die while my mind can go 

No matter how much my body may slow.

For Don Culver Wherever You Are

I met him in the fifth grade, standing

On two crutches. He was little, like me 

Maybe that’s what binded us. Or the crutches. 

I never did ask him why he needed them 

And he could not see mine. I did not know why 

He liked me and I did not know why Mike Costa 

Did not like me, only that one day after school 

Mike tried to pick a fight with me. Donnie stood 

Between us, wrested him to the ground. It ended 

When Mike realized who he was fighting. 

I thanked Donnie as warmly as I could. Despite 

That, I did not see Donnie after the fifth grade 

Until four years later as freshmen in high school. 

 I never did ask him what happened to the crutches. 

What held him up now seemed to be his use 

Of a lot of foul language. I tolerated that 

Because I was somewhat stronger now, yet 

He knew how much I disliked such profanity. 

He seemed to swear more at me than anyone 

And when I asked him to stop, he laughed, 

Warmly, but it made me cold, as if a fight 

Was waiting. I began to walk away, slowly, 

He said he was sorry, but something had broken. 

Now I look for him inside everyone I meet.

Hawaiian Sunset

A sandal sprawled alone in the middle 

Of Kuhio Avenue. Its features were disfigured 

By the wear of two hundred tires 

Passing over it, but I could tell it was one 

Of those many colored rubber slippers 

Preferred by those native to Hawai`i. 

One of the straps was broken 

And that was why it had been left 

Out there, in the middle of a busy street 

Or, while rushing to cross, the owner 

Might have lost it and the strap broken 

By a hurrying Toyota or Chevrolet. 

A Volkswagen ran over it as I watched, 

Sending the sandal into a dance

Its many colors reflecting the bright sun. T

he strain of the dance revealed a crack; 

The slipper had nearly split in two 

So that the heel barely joined the sole. 

I had no reason to run into the street, 

But I rescued the sandal and tucked it 

Deep into the grass hidden from view.

A Last Christmas Visit

We never know who he really is. 

I suppose he gets minimum wage to sit 

There all day, bobbling babies who are tantruming 

Against Santa, odd, bearded stranger; 

Cozying brats with 90s attitudes and sticky fingers; 

And patronizing tired parents insistent 

On doing the Santa thing for their photo albums. 

I had promised Jamie that this would be a last 

Visit for Christmas. At nine, both she 

And her sister had to be coaxed 

To even go to the mall. Chelsea, by my side, 

Still hesitated to be seen on the old 

Man’s lap. His finger beckoned 

To what remained of her childhood 

So she followed her sister to the red perch, 

Overcoming her budding adolescence. 

This temporary worker in a hot, red suit 

Sends my daughters back to me, all grown. 

Maybe he knows he has given me this gift 

He sees how old they are. He hears the soberness 

Of adulthood creeping into their voices. 

How else can he, perhaps a father too, 

Know how much it will mean 

To me ten years from now or even tomorrow?

My Mother’s First Gift

My mother's first gift

To me as a father myself was bestowed far before my children 

Were born. It was the gift of my youngest sister, Merijune, 

Born when I was already fifteen. 

I could barely be a brother to her, 

So it was hard for me to see her as a gift. I had to wait. 

The ribbons had knots too hard for me to untie; wrapping 

Did not yield to my grasp until years 

Later. I left home when she was a toddler. 

I recall playing with her more like an uncle, baby-sitting, 

Teasing her sometimes to make her start, then laugh 

Never knowing how such play 

Was part of my mother’s gift to me 

Years later when I became the father of twin girls, 

I found myself tweaking one of them on the knee, 

A brief form of tickling her 

That I had done often with 

Merijune. It was then I realized that I had unwrapped 

My mother’s gift from twenty-five years before, 

Given in the form of a little 

Girl, now a proud aunt.

The Witness

I still see him every week-day plying the corner

Of Likelike Highway and School Street. I don’t know 

His name, but I call him “Gus.” His eyes softly sell 

A vacant sadness as they seek out commuters 

Who want to get the morning newspaper. 

It is his poorly shaven chin, where the hair 

Is as long as it is on the top of his head that makes 

Him look like a Gus to me and, though I’ve never 

Known anyone with that name, if you see someone 

That often, it’s like you know them. And he knows me. 

When my children were younger, they saw him 

Too, as they rode with me to their school. He saw 

Them with me every week-day. We never bought 

The paper, but I think they were comforted by the constance 

Of his being there, a minor morning god named Gus. 

He could testify to our routine: to the laughter in our car 

That he could easily see; to the replacement of laughter 

By headphones worn to bring the secrecy of teen-age music 

Into their lives; and to coming to see more than just the tops 

Of my daughters’ heads as they looked out into his world. 

Nowadays he sees me, alone, on the same route to work. 

He has no children of his own so how can he know 

How I feel? Still, one day, I will roll down my window, 

My ever shut window, and buy a paper from him 

Just to let him know that I’m glad he’s been there.

Orchard

 

Ten years ago, my father planted some trees 

In a small orchard; three acres, not a tenth 

The size of what he had farmed for many years 

Before. Later, he moved the house where I had spent 

My adolescence to that orchard, where my folks 

Now live but, in their eighties, they are too bent 

With age to care for the trees, pear and walnut boughs 

Grow unpruned, leaves crowd buds from bearing. 

Weeds grow around the trunks. But for Frank Machado, 

An old neighbor, running a disc harrow once along 

The rows, the weeds would be everywhere. Branches, 

Dry from lack of water, are brittle and dying. 

Fruit struggles to grow to half size, will never reach 

The markets. Whole trees have died, still rooted. 

My wife and I enter gingerly, searching 

For a lone plum tree in this orchard. It’s fruit 

Should just be ripening. My father once had thousands 

Of these trees. I know them well. We want to choose 

Some ripened plums to take back to my parents. 

We find the tree with two score plums just turned 

Purple. We cradle the ripest fruit in our hands 

And bring them to the house. When I’ve given 

One to my Dad, I serve grace with this harvest. 

He bites slowly into it, savors his land.

If I Had Died

When I died in my twenty-second year 

I was interred deeply into black soil 

Near Sacramento, the same dark earth 

In which I had toiled for my father. 

My casket was surrounded by relatives 

Consoling my mother and many friends, 

All younger than me, shocked now 

Into believing in death. I was unmourned 

By descendants. I am now a vague memory. 

Poetry having been only a brief flirtation. 

When I died in my forty-sixth year 

I was borne away from my daughters 

When they were too young to understand. 

They thus never came 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 have survived me. 

Perhaps in them, my children would learn 

About me by the time they understood Death. 

When I died in my sixty fourth year 

Not quite old enough to not have died 

Too young, my ashes were scattered 

Upon our Pacific to let me drift 

Upon beaches at Point Reyes, Shillshoe 

And Lanikai where my younger feet 

Had left no marks for anyone to follow. 

My daughters tell my grandchildren 

To seek me in the water near shores 

Where poets solemnly amble. 

When I died in my eighty ninth year 

It was too late for all my friends 

Who had gone before me and too early 

For my grandchildren who barely knew 

That I was a poet, my withered body 

Whisked on smoke to the heavens and my wife 

Who was waiting for me beyond time. 

And my headstone nothing more than piles 

Of poems scattered across a few bookshelves 

Where someone will read them and nod.

Superlady

My wife, Diane, has super powers.

She hears things I cannot hear. 

She feels things I cannot feel. 

She smells things I cannot smell. 

She will lift a cup of milk to my nose: 

“Does this smell okay to you?” It smells 

Fine to me, but down the sink it goes. 

A single molecule of air slips through the window. 

“I feel a draft.” She says and shuts it tight. 

I feel no less cold for it, not that I was cold before. 

“What’s that noise?” She asks, 

As the car floats along as silent as a paper 

Clip, being dragged along a plastic desk. 

But the power over which I marvel most 

Is her ability to detect the slight acceleration 

Of my heartbeat each time I see her, 

Especially when I don’t expect it.

The Porch

 for Diane Sebring 

She stood on the porch, inviting me to go inside,

But I felt more comfortable out there with her. 

It was not a fancy porch with a bench or railings, 

Yet from there I could see the living room 

Which looked as cozy as her face, smiling 

Kindly, with blue eyes, as I told her 

How I was too nervous to sit down 

Right then. Just in the way she nodded 

Told me that she understood me like no one 

Ever had since my grandmother. 

That house looked so big, but she said no place 

Is too big as long as you know someone 

There. Now that I know her, maybe I will 

Go inside and sit on the couch 

Next to the front door where I can still hear 

Her voice soothing other newcomers.

On Just Being Japanese

 

I was never just Japanese, because my parents needed 

Us to be Americans They planted a hyphen in my ethnicity, 

Sown by their incarceration in young adulthood. 

Like many of his peers, my father served in the Army 

Fighting not just for his country but for his race, 

So his fight continued after the war and he enlisted. 

His children. We never flew Koi on Boy’s Day; 

Walked into anyone’s house, including our own with shoes 

On; used chopsticks only in the dark of our kitchen. 

 I came to think of myself as White whenever a mirror 

Was not in front of me until I came to Hawai‘i 

And was surrounded by walking mirrors in Moiliili. 

I became so awkwardly comfortable with my new 

Identity that I did not notice how Japanese I had become 

Until the time my parents came to Hawai‘i and we walked 

 Into a roadside diner with an American name. In the open, 

On every table, were bottles of Kikkoman shoyu. 

My father kept picking one up and staring at it.

The Last Tannenbaum

 

They’re too young for this to be their last 

Christmas tree, I thought. Yet 

Look how much they charge for this 

Noble fir That’s going to dry out and be trashed 

In a few weeks. Every year we line 

Some merchant’s pockets, set the tree 

In a stand, decorate the damn thing 

Then take it out to be chipped for compost 

At the Castle Hill neighborhood park. 

Maybe this year we’ll finally go to church 

To remind our children what it’s really 

About. I worry that they’ll soon discard 

Jesus as easily as Santa, chip both ideals 

To compost; fertilize a post modern cynicism. 

In too few years, they might look into the rear 

View mirror as Christmas recedes 

Into their childhood’ leaving Santa, God and 

Me behind. No tree costs 

Too much to delay that for another year.

Stop Light

 

Ahead of her rising of fog 

The stop light changes to red, 

Her car does not stop. 

She needed more time 

To collect herself before 

She drove off with tears. 

Her car did not stop. 

I saw a truck hit the side 

Where she was driving. 

Through a thick fog 

I heard the ambulance come. 

I knew she was hurt. 

I arrived in tears 

To her hospital bedside 

She needed more time. 

I had no flowers 

Thoughtless, just like me 

In my rising of fog. 

Though I’d made her sad 

She was glad that I had come 

But that I’d missed her stop light.

Rhythms

 

There is a very small, but very potent 

Organ embedded in my heart. (No, 

This has nothing to do with romance.) 

My father must have put it there. 

It will not show up on any scans 

Or X-rays nor would any surgeon 

Dig around enough to find it. 

I am not even sure where it lies. 

I know it is there because I feel it. 

When? I don’t mean to brag, but my career 

In higher education has been ripe 

With many fine accomplishments. 

But I’ve helped countless students 

Without sensing this small organ beat. 

No, I only notice it when I work at home: 

Get a drain unclogged, fix a fan 

 

Or even change my oil (and bloody 

My elbow). I don’t think of my Dad 

Then, but that’s when this organ beats, 

It’s rhythm telling me I’m his son.

September Dawn

Torayoshi looked at his second daughter, 

Radiant infant, with joy, although he said, 

As Japanese men are supposed to say, that 

            He was frustrated 

At not yet having a son. Still, there was dawn 

About her face, as though she promised something 

To her father, something far in time. Her name 

            Became Asako. 

He raised her like he raised his flowers, gently, 

But knowing how to coax, from stem to blossom, 

Both beauty and strength, knowing when to water 

            And when to shelter. 

He raised her as the sun raises a fall day 

With the mystery of harvest in shadows 

Growing longer. He cared for her soft brilliance 

            Shining through winter. 

In her spring he cultivated the blooming 

Of her heart, full of gladness and dimpled cheeks. 

She knew his affection, not by his touch, but eyes 

            Stern and approving, 

Even as war everywhere ascended. She had 

His strength and pride for support, even as she was 

Torn from ivy, rose and eucalyptus trees, and 

            Sent to a desert. 

Her summer brought a man not unlike her father, 

A farmer, a man who planted life to feed 

Life, a man of family. Five seedlings 

            Sprang, the first a son. 

September is an early harvest, labor 

Never being easy. She gave her children 

What her father gave her: eighty-four seasons 

            Raised like flowers. 

Late September, the first son had two daughters, 

So what passed from father to daughter to son 

And now passes to daughters is knowledge of life

            Shining like the dawn.

My Grandfather’s Castings

My mother’s father had been something of a ladies’ man 

Back in Japan. He never got a chance to advise me 

About the looks in a woman’s eye or the need to use 

Words carefully, because he went back to Japan 

After his wife died. I was on the brink at 13; 

Too young to learn anything from him yet; too old 

To fear his leaving would deny me anything. 

When I planned to see him at the age of 30 

He was 88 and dying. I had been a failure in any way 

Of meeting a woman’s look or speaking with one. 

He had planned to introduce me to some eligible 

Women in his village, but it was too late for him 

Or so I thought. On my way back from his land, 

I happened to meet a woman in Hawai‘i, whose voice 

Reminded me of something I had not heard in 17 

Years. On one of our first dates, we saw an old man 

Casting for fish off the reef, the way my grandfather 

Used to cast in California in the way he never taught 

Me then. I was learning something from him now 

And a few months later, at our wedding, I knew 

He had arranged it all, when a light rainfall, well known 

In Hawai‘i as a blessing on our marriage, graced 

Our ceremony for just the few moments after we left 

The church and before we had made our way 

Into a new life, guided by my ancestors.

Eternal Gifts

The taste of hot apple cider tingling

With cinnamon; the long forgotten 

Feel of real tinsel tangled in a tree, 

But glistening brightly among the lights; 

The shared joy of siblings awaking 

Before dawn to see what Santa brought; 

The sound of Bing Crosby pouring 

“White Christmas” through a radio 

So old you can barely hear him; 

The feel of stockings as you hung 

Them on a real mantle; and smells 

Of fir, spice cookies and canes of candy. 

These memories endure and return 

Each Christmas. They remind us that 

The best gifts of Christmas are the ones 

Given to us as children. They come back 

Each December to remind us of something 

Eternal in us, childhood’s great blessing.

Haiku

Under a dead leaf
An ant struggles to get out. 

It is now twilight, 

By the rippling brook 

A rabbit pauses to breathe; 

A rosebud trembles. 

The clouds are leaden. 

In the air a single wren. 

I feel drops of rain. 

A fir falls softly, 

Moss still lingers on its side. 

Night covers the tree

The Weight of Lights

Moths swerve to candles as the weight 

Of light pulls them in orbit about a flame. 

I look north from the Sacramento Airport 

To the oak trees bunched on Elverta Road 

Where my parents’ home once gleamed 

Like a candle of love wrought wax drawing 

Out my childhood of old December nights. 

Now that house is gone, moved to a place 

Where the light does not penetrate as far. 

Now it is a December morning rushing me 

Back to Hawai‘i, where my wife and children 

Glow with warmth. That glow draws me home 

As a parent. If light has no mass, how can lights 

Past and present weigh so much within my chest? 

What does a moth do between two candles?

My First Memory

A large grey chair in my grandparents’ 

Living room in Richmond, California, 

Not so much the chair but the person 

            Propped up inside it. 

I remember nothing of her appearance, 

Only the chair, which now remains in my 

Parents’ living room, reupholstered 

             Like all of our lives. 

Every element of her image at three days 

Of age has been replaced by something 

Far more memorable than the little dress 

             She wore that morning, 

The cap placed on her head, the bracelet 

She wore from the hospital, and her chubby 

Cheeks. This was my new sister, Shira. 

             She was my first friend. 

My two year old mind could not tell me 

How she would later tease me into seeing 

Her as someone completely different 

             From anyone else, 

Let alone any boy. She gave me lessons 

For manhood well before manhood, even 

As her small tummy was the target 

             Of my unruled fist. 

Her joy at Christmas, her voice joining 

Mine in songs, her tears over a fish 

She caught without realizing what it meant 

To capture nature 

Are indelible features of my childhood. 

So even though three siblings were to join 

Us and our lives have long separated 

             By choices we’ve made, 

My first memory as I knelt before that chair 

Is of my feeling of wonder over this new 

Someone who held so much of my future 

             In two tiny hands.

Sailing North

 In memory of my cousin, Albert Tsuneyuki Tokuno, 1936-2008 

Perhaps they still build ships of wood using “ways,” 

Struts to support the hull while the ship was being formed. 

I don’t know, but once such ships could brave the waters 

Anywhere once those struts were taken away and the vessel 

Launched. When the ship was ready and their ways ceased 

To be needed; the ship was ready to sail and the ways 

Were cast aside as a bottle was broken against the bow for luck. 

Our ways slip aside with a similar liquid christening, 

But not all at one time. For many of us, these struts are gone 

Before we are ready to leave our harbors. If we are lucky, 

We see each of them for what they are before too many 

Have left our sides. Even as we complete our inner riggings. 

We only begin to see their worth. We value their strength 

Only after we no longer feel their struts pressing us, 

Only after we have been at sea for years and have set 

Our compasses for that inevitable passage we follow 

As we sail north in their white and clear wake.

Wonder

 

She spends the morning scolding them six times 

Each to get them to listen and do 

What they’re told. By afternoon, she relents 

And they do what they’re told. 

By evening they neither listen nor do 

What they’re told, yet I catch her smiling 

At them, even though they cannot see 

It, the smile. I do not see it either, 

But I know it is there, because I hide 

That same smile beneath my growling 

Voice, telling them for a fourth time. 

To brush their teeth 

And at night we each watch them 

Sleeping to see if they listen to us 

As we breathe our love over their foreheads.

Love and Technology

 

I hear my mother smiling over the phone. 

I feel between the lines of her e-mail 

To sense her firm hands as they once soothed 

My aching stomach on those cold February 

Days of my childhood in Sacramento. 

One day, I may see her eyes crinkle in LCD 

Laughter, live on the camera fastened 

To my computer; the transmission of her face 

Once again fooling me into believing 

That she is with me wherever I am 

Even as that scintilla in my brain, born 

In childhood, refuses to see her as anything 

But a woman of 35 years reaching through time 

And space to be as close to me as ever.

Gifts of Time

 

It’s Dad’s 88th birthday and he fumbles 

With a gift he is trying to unwrap. Age 

Has made him clumsy, his once nimble fingers 

Can no longer glide 

Along the edge of the wrapping paper, 

Feel for the tape he used to remove with care 

Not to tear the paper that once off he’d fold 

Like origami 

Into a neat square, not even looking at the gift 

Until this was done. When we were young children 

This would frustrate us since we knew he never 

Re-used that paper 

And we wanted to see how he liked our gifts. 

Now he struggles to unwrap the digital 

Picture frame my brother has given to him. 

The technology 

Does not impress him as much as the images 

Moving into view: his children, grandchildren, 

And wife; the images of his life moving 

Into the future.

Haiku for a Sterilized Island

 

Piercing smell of cane 

Burning. The kolea flees, 

Screeching, to the road 

Banana poka 

Twists itself over the necks 

Of hibiscus blooms 

A stealthy mongoose 

Slinks away, with the I`iwi 

Crying for its egg. 

A sterile green skin 

Covers acres. Small white spheres 

Are rolled into cups.

Haiku: Sansei Trilogy

 

FOOD 

Chopsticks clack with forks 

Picking rice, beets, pork sausage 

Covered with soy sauce. 

 HOME 

Shoes on the threshold 

Will tell our guests too late: their 

Socks should not have holes 

 CHRISTMAS 

An origami 

Crane hangs next to a plastic 

Reindeer from Japan

Fading

 

It is not a feeling of sorrow as I wave good-bye 

To my father. There have been so many partings 

In my 53 years. Each one has taught me 

Something about departure 

And about this man, who has already taught 

Me more than all of the professors 

Decorating my degrees. 

This time, he has taught me patience 

As I have waited for him to shuffle toward me 

In the airport lobby. It is clear that he has had the lesson 

Of patience forced upon him and he now wears 

It like a bad hat, hoping the wind will take it. 

He and my mother live so far away, 

Since I moved to Hawai`i. 

But I have rested my guilt and try to gain 

Joy from their every visit. Yet, 

I now clutch a feeling of finality

As I watch them recede in the heavens, 

No longer certain if their flight takes 

Them where they wish to go.

Elegy for Pudding

 

I had never come close to crying for a cat. 

I hate them, hate the way their eyes can fill with fervent 

Suspicion as they look at you and never, never look 

Away, even when you yell at them like a maniac 

So when Pudding was euthanized, I was surprised 

By the rivulet that slinked through my feelings. 

I had special reason to spite her: The fleas, 

The way she tore at the rug, and her durable eyes 

But she faded suddenly, which was not the first time 

She had not followed my ideal of what pets 

Should do. When Diane called me on the phone 

The rivulet seeped briefly. We put her in a cardboard 

Box. Diane wanted to bury her in our back yard. 

I know how to lay pets to rest from my farm days 

When it seemed we lost one puppy a week. Our lawn 

Was going to look like it had never been disturbed. 

 I wanted the grass to sit perfectly flat once the soil 

Had settled. Other cats started to gather on the bier 

Ever since we put her there. They disturb the site, 

Keeping it brown. Diane said they came to mourn 

A comrade, but I—being so much like a cat myself 

Knew that they came to dance on the grave of a rival 

Cats have no sentiment and that’s what my wife 

Envies about them, though she will never admit it.

Elegy for Grandma Tokuno

 

My grandmother existed as whisps of white 

In photographs; memories designed out of tales 

My father told to me; what scraps of images 

That I could retrieve from my first six years of life 

Left there before she went to Japan, a farmer's 

Widow returning to the black soils that pushed 

Up the stalks of rice her father sold in bushels 

In Kumamoto. She was staying in the home 

Of her daughter, Teyko, when she died of a heart 

Failure while she rested from the years of breaking 

Veins, straining sweat laden bornings year after year 

Of children and olive crops. Christmas Day had yet 

To end, the artificial snow on our tree still 

Fluffed, when we heard that she had not survived the Eve. 

I'm ashamed to admit that I did not cry. Relief 

That it was not my mom's mother was what I felt; 

Yet the tears came when I saw her lying so calm, 

Dim in her coffin. It would not be the first time 

I grieved over losing what I never knew was mine.

Blindness

Through the windshield that hid Kim’s face 

I could barely see her brown eyes, darker 

Than they should have been, the color 

Blackened. I knew that even if my view 

Was clear, if the heavily tinted window 

Was not between us, it would take a long 

 Time to reconcile her image, despite the long 

Black hair, so innocent, and her stiff face. 

Her husband deeply tinted her car’s windows, 

To block them from the world behind the dark 

Screen of the vessel carrying her within view 

Of too much of the world and its color. 

 Instead, days gazing at boxes with windows 

Filled with bytes coded so that the colors 

Removed her from nature to a deepness of dark 

Cells, electrons pushing their way along 

Soldered arteries until they erupt before her face 

Giving nothing more than a hermit’s view 

 Of a life she no longer touches, no longer views. 

So why is it so unusual to tint these windows 

That otherwise would force them both to face 

A world in which they obscure nature’s colors: 

Where once their grandfathers walked with long 

Strides that hurried more in winter when night 

 Brought more reason for fear than the dark 

They now use for comfort; to disguise the view 

Of the scenes that all grandfathers once longed 

To see through the clarity of their windows, 

Looking to a world where they knew that colors 

Meant life and life was something to face? 

 Will our grandchildren darken all windows 

To hide their view of a world so discolored 

Or will they at long last seek out human faces?

Birds

 

My late father in law cared too much about birds 

He would nurse baby birds who’d fallen out of their nests 

Taking an eye dropper filled with mashed grain 

He’d feed the doves that clustered outside his door 

Every day, from the bottles of bird seed he kept. 

The birds still came every day weeks after his death 

Waiting for the soft clucking sound he used to make 

I was surprised how long they persisted when we stopped 

But doves are just smart enough to find other food. 

When I was fifteen I once shot a kildeer for no reason 

Regretting it at once the way it dropped so suddenly 

Right on the spot my bullet had pierced its breast 

The kildeer is one of those birds who fakes injury 

To draw predators away from their nest I saw many of 

Them trying to draw my tractor away from its inexorable path. 

As I harrowed our field where I had over-run 

Thousands of unhatched eggs, ignoring the mothers’ act.

It is too late for me to ask the killdeers to forgive, 

The hands that jerked the earth mover’s triggers 

But I give them and all their cousins my children, 

The grand-daughters of a man who knew that nature 

 Is just smart enough to outlast the machinery.

Oak

 

I was thirteen when I first saw that oak standing alone at the corner of Highway 99 and Elkhorn Road. I did not know that it was a last survivor of a forest that had been cleared for farms a hundred years before when frustrated miners found the real value of California was not in gold but in land. The oak looked like a bison running angrily over the dry flat lands of Sacramento. It was the kind of landmark that stamped itself indelibly on me at the start of my adulthood. Within five years, it had disappeared, astonishing me with how quietly it had thundered to the ground. I was left with no clue as to how it came to an end. I only know that I cannot see a lone tree standing anywhere, whether it is a giant fir near Seattle or a spiring coconut palm in Honolulu, without pondering the strength of Nature ruling in such solitude.

Elegy for Uncle Kazu

 

You were not my uncle and you had little to say to me, 

Recent stranger in your long life, married to the niece 

You adored, whose brother used to pedal his bike 

To your gas station on Kuhio Avenue, where you kept 

Your arms deep in grease and your smile quietly left 

Upon tourists who asked you to pump gas, directions 

To Ala Moana or where they could find good eats. 

Your nephew, Gary, skin nearly as dark as the asphalt 

In Waikiki, would keep his surf board in your office 

For those times when you stopped whatever repairs 

You were making for Keoni Chang or Mits Oka 

And drive him to Queen’s Beach, your arms only 

Slightly free of those dark smudges mechanicsWore as badges of their trade. Then after many years, 

Your service station long replaced by a nameless condo, 

You and your wife, childless and suddenly helpless 

Had to go to a nursing home. Gary was the one who 

Found a home in Palolo, cleaned your house, sold 

It to pay for your care and visited you after your quiet 

Smile had been lost to all but us. Those trips to Queen’s 

Beach gave us directions for what now endures of you.

Talk About Romance

 

After thirty years of marriage, Romance becomes the knack 

For telling me, your husband that my breath stinks like rotting 

Flesh even while you admit to me that my lips are still as 

Soft as marshmallows 

And my being able to tell you that you eat too many carrots, 

Which is why your hands are orange, yet are still nice to caress 

As I walk with you on the satin sands at Kailua beach late 

On Sunday mornings. 

This is all the result, My Dear, of nothing less than the vast 

Comfort that comes from being so used to having each 

Other to pick on and yet I can still wonder over that fresh 

Flower in your hair 

Or you, the song I learned to play that you never noticed 

Me practice. Now even as my life grows drowsy with age, 

I do not fear that long sleep where my dreams will be 

Eternally you.

Tony

 

My brother wore this red plastic hat when we would go 

Into the field to hoe weeds. Tony got it from our cousin. 

It was one of the few hand me downs that he didn’t get 

From me. Maybe that’s why he wore it even though 

It had the odor that plastic gets when soaked 

With sweat. We’d work side by side for hours and see 

Who could finish a row faster even though I was five 

Years older. It was never about fairness. He learned. 

Afterwards, as tired and hot as we were we’d play 

Basketball on our farm. We had no one else to test 

But each other. We couldn’t do lay-ups on our driveway 

Because of the brick abutment under the basket, so a good 

Jump shot was the difference. He forced me to play 

My best because his hustle matched my height advantage. 

Tony made me improve because he knew my game. 

For neither of us was it about fairness. I learned. 

We stopped moving side by side after he finished school. 

He worked, married, bought houses in Silicon Valley 

While I stayed a starving graduate student. Neither of us 

Has finished our row yet, but we both have come to know 

That it matters less who wins or finishes first as much 

As the lessons that we learned from those days of heat.

Leaving Something Behind

In Memory of Nelson Bentley 

I last saw him pressed against the lectern, 

Surveying the rows of empty seats; 

Their lacquered yellow finish glowing 

Like mowed stalks of summer wheat. 

I thought of the lone oak tree 

That pillared above my father’s field 

Throughout my early fertile years. 

It was the only living thing that reached 

Higher than the chimneys of the houses scattered 

In our bend of the Sacramento River. 

My brother and I would rest in the shade 

Of that valley oak after hours of hoeing 

Weeds in the thirstiest days of July. 

One night a fire broke out in some old wood 

We had stacked under the tree. 

Though it lived, the leaves of limbs forty 

Feet up were curled by the heat and smoke. 

Sometime in the many years after I left home 

I looked to that far corner of the field 

Now undistinguished except for some young 

Cottonwoods struggling through the December winds. 

I never asked what happened to the oak. 

The next time I went to the classroom 

It was new term, the seats full 

Of students waiting to begin.

Dad's Quails

Dad never said he liked animals, but we always

Had a dog for a pet. He would give them demeaning names 

Such as “Knothead” or “Fish-face” and pet them so hard 

We kids thought he was beating them. Once “Fish-face” 

(His real name was “Prince”) strayed too far from the yard. 

Dad lifted him up on his shoulder and hauled 

Him home while the poor dog yelped helplessly. 

I was always puzzled by how those dogs were so happy 

To see him arrive. To my eyes, they groveled like servants. 

One of the neighborhood boys, whom I did not like, 

Was, as our dogs, mysteriously drawn to my father. 

Dad also liked to hunt pheasants and fish. 

He had practical reasons, I guess, because we would eat 

What he shot or caught. It was never enough for a meal. 

Cats? They seemed to be beneath his notice, but once 

A kitten got lost under our house. The family was sitting 

Down for dinner already, but he was outside kneeling 

On the lawn and calling out “Kitty-cat? Kitty-cat?” 

In an uncharacteristically high voice. One summer 

As we detoured on one of Dad’s infamous “shortcuts” 

A mama quail dashed out from the side of the road 

With four small chicks behind her in a row, quills 

Bobbing comically. Dad yelled “Ack!” and jerked 

The steering wheel to miss them. For some reason, 

I then recalled that kitten under the house, the boy 

In our neighborhood, and the look on our dogs’ faces. 

I laughed out loud at the odd sound of his voice 

Or my new realization of who my father was.

This Green

 It was during my pilgrimage to Japan

That I visited Kebara, the birthplace 

Of my mother's father. There, above the rice

            Fields' fertile hallows,

I felt the green of hills rolling over my eyes

Like the green of Sonoma's spring coverings.

Sonoma was where I once sought to settle

            Before Hawai`i's 

Brilliance locked me upon the islands midway

Between my grandparents' graves on the Richmond

Hills and their parents' graves in Wakayama,

            Both green in the spring.

I look upon the burning green of the ridges

Of the Koolaus, wondering what that something

Was that sent me to this place, bright reminder

            Of all this green.

Rita

I had not seen her in eighteen years: 

Back when I last saw her delicate frame

Which reminded me of the smallest limbs 

On fruit trees, the ones so slender yet bearing

All of the weight.

I was surprised when she called me by name.

I had not recognized her withered,

As if it were someone who had not felt

Winter in a long time. Her delicacy now

Was of limbs shorn

Of any fruit as in a brutal September.

She was still slender, but brittled

By seasons and strain. I knew her voice,

Radiant with the kind firmness

She had always had

And looking into her eyes, I saw them hold

That same beauty safe from the cold.

Christmas in Hawai`i

The comfort of Christmas embraces me here

In the tropics, yet it is strange how a winter

Event is so transported. Even though Christ 

Was not born in the snow, I've always thought

About Christmas with jingle bells dangling on sleighs.

Jingle bells dangling on sleighs only happens

In songs in Hawai`i. Glazed topiary reindeer

Graze on green tropical lawns. Plastic snowmen

Perch on driveways lined with orchids

Department Santas sweat in red satin suits.

Santas sweating in red satin suits greet

Children of all mixes of races. Carols

Echo along white sand beaches where couples

Kiss beneath mistletoe hung on palm trees.

With the Aloha spirit, Christmas isn't needed.

The Aloha spirit may make Christmas unneeded

Here, where the idea of seasons is meaningless.

There is no winter in Hawai`i, yet no matter

How odd, all of these trappings unwrap smiles.

The comfort of Christmas embraces me here.

Aloha? No.

 I love the way I hate this place.

We left Hawai`i in '85. Good riddance

To the cockroaches and the high rent,

The even higher humidity and the rock fever.

Standing over a sink in Seattle one night 

I heard Garrison Keilior on the radio talking

In Blaisdell Arena about the warm air

Caressing his face. I became mystified

By the sudden tears caressing my nose.

I was advising students from Hawai`i who were

Attending the University of Washington:

Garrett from Pearl City, Shelly from Wailuku,

Clarissa from Kaneohe, the same town 

Where my wife was raised. Homesick,

They brought a luau to the Northwest 

Each April, small pieces of Hawai`i

In orchids, haupia, hulas and ukuleles

But there is no way to bring small pieces

Of Hawai`i to anyplace else and have them fit.

So we came back, lashed by my wife's

Longing for the caresses of the wind

That I could not give her myself

In those dark, cold nights of Seattle.

Now the warm evenings wrap is together.

I hate the way I love this place.

Addiction

Coming of age on a farm in Sacramento was not my choice.

I spent my teen years driving tractors through dust so thick

I would emerge at the end of the day with nostrils clogged

With black grit. I would watch the sorghum seeds we planted rise

Like the soldiers sowed by Jason, knowing I would have 

To fight them all summer. being scalded by the sun.

Many times, hooked to the plants' needs, I would struggle

With my boots and shovel through midnight to dose

The dry earth so that we would be able to harvest, what?

Cow food. Now in Kaneohe my wife and I have a yard

And I tell her with no hesitation that I hate gardening.

It is too redolent. Digging out weeds is the same

No matter where the weeds are growing. Blisters

Are the same whether they come from raking leaves 

Or shoveling through earth. Yet, when I see the yard covered

With weeds I cannot help myself. I must clear the yard

As if to clog my nostrils with a drug, must bring those blisters

To my palms, then look at what I have done and tremble with joy.

Hawaiian Winters

Everything seems smaller on a cloudy day:

Dreams, skyscrapers, and packages of seedless plums.

It is not a lessening of the light as much 

As it is a lowering of our sight, as eyes

Greet these gray visitors of December.

Days ending sooner than in June

Are not so noticed if the sun shines, but when

They are cast over, it feels like a theft

Of time. We do not feel sad as much

As we feel our lines of thought twisted

A bit, clarity blocked, senses cheated.

We turn lots of lights on before sunset,

Just so we can see the evening paper despite

The gloom that we can taste, eat our dinners

After daylight and go to sleep in hope of rising

To a day that gives us real light.