LITMIR.BIZ

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like sparrows from a startled fence.

Watching Bon Odori from a Vantage Pointwith My Three Children

      It was from a slope you earned by clinging.

      The sidewalk was a crowd watching a street dance

      of peasants hoeing rows of white radish

      below strings of rice paper lanterns.

      The drumbeat grew constant as surf

      after days of ocean; it became a heartbeat.

      The footwork of the drummer, the way each swing

      had meaning and was sure

      reminded me of my father just before retiring.

      Drunk on payday night, he would sing on our front porch

      a Japanese song that meant nothing to me

      surrounded by a small town, sagebrush

      and hills that stayed out of the way of a creek.

      Clapping hands between each pause

      of thumping foot, father wove 130 pounds of rhythm

      with biceps I always admired. That’s what swinging

      a pick or sledge hammer could do. Thirteen years old.

      I would come up behind the ritual of his dance,

      wrap suntanned arms around his chest, capturing

      darker arms, and lift in a half-circle

      to carry him back inside, out of the light

      that took the shape of our front door

      fallen down. Once inside he would want to do some judo,

      telling me the story I had heard

      longer than anyone in the family.

      Not the oldest son, at 16 he had left their farm

      in Nagano, gone to Tokyo, a descendent of samurai,

      and had been thrown out of a club

      that taught lessons in self-defense.

      Right into the street, he would brag, just like this

      as I held his still-strong grip and pulled him

      up off the floor where I had tackled him,

      not knowing judo. When you fall, he said,

      before you land, hit the floor harder first

      with your hand and arm; it won’t hurt.

Because It Is Close and My Mother Is 72

      From our booth my mother watches a Chinese busboy

      who looks older than she is, and can’t use good English.

      He talks to those who don’t understand

      with smiles and nods. Wearing a circle

      of white cardboard for a hat with no top,

      he displays one gold and three

      missing teeth. His back bends over a tray of cups

      like the top branch in a tree full of starlings.

      He gestures to a waitress, he’s doing his job.

      I recall my father telling me about ten cents

      a day in 1910, working for the Great Northern.

      The old man wipes at the floor next to us,

      using an overflow of water and effort.

      My mother looks away at the wall; he finishes,

      dragging a darkened mop over deep red

      and tan blocks of tile. One mopstring lags,

      trailing evaporation that follows him

      through swinging metal doors.

      Our food on a tray passes the other way.

      Splashes mark the wall near where he worked.

      Clearing her throat my mother would rather

      he get up earlier, mop before we come. She bunches

      her face in a mask and adds, the food

      is ten times better at Hong Kong

      downtown; more high tone. Serving her, I nod.

      I can feel the napkin ball under the knuckles

      of her richly veined fist, a crumpled white blossom.

Shrike on Dead Tree

      —after a painting by Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645)

      Steadfastly

      up the

      single

      brush

      stroke

      of its

      trunk

      a worm

      crawls

      toward

      a butcher

      bird

      perched

      on

      an upper

      barren

      branch.

Ōhashi in a Shower

      —after a painting by Hiroshige Ando (1797–1858)

      Beyond the river

      a grey wood is seen dimly.

      Like black string

      the rain falls

      long

      straight

      slanting.

      On a wooden bridge

      six figures

      divide

      in a scurry

      for shelter.

      Droplets

      pucker the indigo

      water, smack

      the planks

      of the bridge

      and a forgotten

      raft about to float

      downstream.

Painting of a HermitageShūbun, Fifteenth Century

      A teahouse fits a bamboo grove by a lake.

      In an open window a man

      stops reading, studies a tree

      twisting like tributaries to a river.

      The pine drops dry needles,

      green cones, over the edge of a cliff.

      Somewhere out of the painting,

      seedlings rise from earth

      like men shrugging their shoulders.

Nisei: Second-Generation Japanese American

      They grow over the Yangtze, the plum rains

      grow over water that drops

      gently to the wideness of the East China Sea.

      Farmers in Kyushu are caught by the floating clouds,

      caught square in the middle of their fields,

      squinting

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