However Briefly

I am deepened by the bravery of my immigrant grandparents who left comfortable, koto-playing lives and endured working as gardeners for racists like Fred Astaire who knew he could dance away without ever paying them when they only wanted to buy a box of oranges all their food for a week And I admire my pioneer parents going eastward from Manzanar to Michigan during World War II where tomatoes were thrown at them while they waited for buses and yet still succeeded in giving their children a sense of humor and a global view And I appreciate a cultural heritage of ancient, meticulous rock gardens with carefully raked waves yet it's also part of my problem for at the shore I like to hear the low rumble of the sea roll in the warm sand jump in the waves and feel it's only natural I especially like Chief Seattle's speech the majestic Iliad Rabelais' humor Tolstoy's War and Peace Richard Wright's Black Boy And Twain's "Leaping Frog" I like the freedom to do what I think is important: to work against climate change to stamp my foot on the marble floor of a mansion owned by people with factories badly polluting the air And I stare at an elegant kimono woven one silk strand at a time hanging next to a large abstract painting created with a broom by my best friend who immigrated here from Latvia

With head bent, intent I start to climb alone focused only on getting to the top Arms start swinging fists go up and down mechanically in front of my face as I walk faster and faster with exaggerated gusto And then suddenly my elbows bump my sides and I start to laugh, let go, and giggle I turn around, spread my imaginary wings glide back down to the valley where friends and family will laugh with me

Take away the sun—no matter For you leave me flittering about the day Like an old girl gone mad Tilting with my broom Gazing at glittering dust Almost forgetting to sweep

When I hear a lady sing while playing a samisen joy comes in remembering that here in a foreign land in words I barely understood my grandmother sang to me about children everywhere joining hands in friendship

How lucky we are as we grow old to sit together on a park bench listening to birds trill in the air or icicles clattering in sudden refrains while we simply add arpeggios when memory fails

They worked door to door in '64 registering voters and singing "We shall overcome" marching against war burning draft cards joining hands to change America And then there was bewilderment when MLK, RFK, and students at Kent State protesting war were shot and killed Yet I wonder why they threw up their hands and headed out to California looking for marijuana and Janis Joplin's scream while history kept giving them chances chances rarely given to change America for good

In summer we cross through Fields of grasses arching As they move in the breeze Searching for wild pear trees So far never found And when we stop to rest Toss pine cones into streams And dream of where they go

The long heavy rain stops and the sky is cleansed into a crystalline shade of blue recalling the pristine world native people in America preserved for millennia We've broken every treaty made with Native people to take more land where we keep piling on plastic which breaks into tiny pieces lasting for millennia

What freedom to walk slowly away from old routines into the changing shoreline with its lacy waves receding to an unknown place in the sea where we can dream a little while gazing at palm branches brushing against the sun

During the last class of the year I call on students with raised hands grow more and more pleased with their questioning until I excuse myself and step into the cool corridor to collect my thoughts savor a teacher's reward and recall with a smile the first day of class when they switched off the lights and threw erasers at me

My love sails away in his search for another sea, another song and though his sailboat is moored far away whistling wind carries a knocking sound of halyards and mast in a clanging song that I sing to him-- Sailor, song maker Fare thee well Fare thee well

At the cemetery peacefulness restores me once ten times it drives me mad for our love feels permanently fastened like fossil on rock and your death a painful severing I recall our love as a deep synchronization in two lives that gave us joy out of all proportion and I will honor your last wish to keep sunlight somewhere before me

If the gods or you or I should end this dream, let me recall the day we fell in love how we kept walking anywhere Buildings, other people simply disappeared and above us seagulls were soaring their wings going stiff as if in awe of all our flight

Sprawling under a tree we laugh so hard that I begin to roll off your belly and must hold you even tighter while all about us poppies flutter on this perfect June day from which we may someday measure every other

She announces that we're all stupid and that she's not drunk narrows her eyes to show that she means it curses art in front of his friends until they leave He sits back down without being asked and intently listens to her then shoulders her home through fresh snow slips a painting under her arm for he knows she's broke again

After my father died I went down to the sea where waves suggest there are no straight lines or answers only swirls, undulations Going in to swim I free myself from the specificity of placing one foot in front of the other at a funeral I move in any direction on a whim and enjoy the translucent colors under the water I recall my father struggling for us his single-mindedness like the last bright leaf in an autumn storm twisting in the wind but not letting go Leaning back I gaze at the horizon water meeting sky to eternity where my father his love and strength stay with me

One evening while in college you saunter over to talk and we proceed seriously to share insights from the day You tell me how Gogol's character walked very carefully so that he wouldn't wear out his shoes We laugh into the night wishing to kiss between words or press palm against palm as we finally say good night

I'm so truly unbearable that you would be pleased As I thrum my fingers on the table And give my teeth-clenched, eyes-closed, very quick Side-to-side headshake of complete exasperation Whenever a man tries to put me down But there's one little problem I've discovered: Fellas scare kinda easy these days So while you're out there on the beach Having your fun pulling down swimming trunks Let me know if you run across a man With a little chest sticking out Send him along for me to check out

Planting a young cherry tree outside my window in memory of a friend I daydream about blossoming spring, shiny red fruit in summer At night, however, deer eat all the leaves of the tree and during the next night listening to the wind thinking I hear returning deer I jump up, sweep the curtain aside ready to startle the bandits Instead, stars glitter along bare branches wind swirls the tree into a dance of silhouettes over the ground letting me see a another world with the beauty of deer in the moonlight

As children In woods hushed by a winter storm we stretch way out and lean on our elbows to watch bright cardinals flicking snow completely oblivious to any chill in the air

Early this morning light from the east streams out and rosy shadows creep over enormous, billowing, delicate-edged clouds set against a pale, blue sky and I believe my friend who painted beautifully on large canvases before is now in charge of all the sky where memories of our laughter our frowning and smiling drift with magnificent clouds of the morning sky

Thousands of times I have looked at the lines In Van Gogh's pen and ink drawing of hospital grounds at Arles finding every single stroke of his pen every single line, every single line is part of a harmonious whole in his stunning definition of beauty

I sit in an ancient theater in Arles the first one I have ever seen and realize how for many years I have been searching for this place where mankind once came together to hear passionate ideas ring out Columns, stairs, places to sit carefully chiseled from massive rock by people who clearly knew how essential communities are I daydream about the future when every community creates places to meet, seeks understanding of one another, of ideas, until everyone shrugs off war as outdated, inhuman, absurd

In a hospital there are cardiac, pediatric, obstetric wards and more and he's in a psychiatric ward trying to get out of depression, back to his former self He follows the ward's routine for weeks talks to doctors, nurses, anyone as he tries to make connections with people stay alert to their nods of assent or dissent even though he doesn't want to Christmas carolers come to sing and as they leave he marvels at their strength to walk out of the ward while confusion, what to do next, paralyzes him, keeps him inside of himself Sometimes he feels like a crab on the ocean floor waiting all day for warm currents, feelings to take him back to a familiar shore One night in bed he hears staff talking in the hallway and their words fall on him like raindrops from the world he left and suddenly he remembers how much he once loved springtime Tears slip down his cheeks and he grabs at them, at these precious milestones of feeling and hoping that he will make it back smiles broadly into the darkness

I like the thoroughness of rain water reaching every root the scope of a storm our world hushed for an hour people left gazing at the landscape billowing and bending

Amid floating leaves on firmly arched stems the petals of water lilies open to the sun rippling the pond And I think of youth sound asleep on rugs protest guitars on bellies awakening among friends bumping strings into hums

We stop lifting beam after beam, put down hammers, saws-- reach for lunch pails, start strutting across streets with the sun on our faces walking slowly back on our heels joking, showing off on our way to the park pleased with our work Forty or more years ago before the President broke strike after strike and unions lost ground we lived in a golden age of the working class -- hammering, sawing building neighborhoods walking to homes we owned talking about our kids how we were making a good future for them

Tulip petals bend way back from the stem lean in six different directions almost break off The young live like this in a bright, mad dance Irises sway standing amid sleek leaves with blue sails fluttering in the breeze The elderly are elegant even if slightly bent

I would like to start over again with someone young, as easy to love as you yet I cannot explain the sea nor will I draw you out of the pristine world of innocence

The artist looks around greets everyone and circles his work His magnificent sculpture is steady while critics move about like flies and leave silently He grips, cracks a wine glass In his hand yet still stands Smiling and bleeding

Musicians take their places finish tuning their instruments the conductor comes forth chandeliers slowly dim and a raucous world disappears The first clear notes arise and I clasp my hands in gratitude for this utter refinement surviving centuries of chaos and even the horrors of war

When our mother died a great cloud curtain rushed to the horizon and misted light in golden lavender soft as rose petals streamed down Watching the sun its molten red pressing against the unknown night we think of her how she will always extend our days

By day we splash, snap towels at each other stay alert to any chance for mischief under the wide open skies of America On a first date we try to slide into each other as the car swerves, giggle and later try to kiss and grin at the same time

May no one ever decide what to do with these last open fields fleckering the rural Midwest where dewberries glisten after summer rain and warm breaths of air arise from earth like prayer

Poplars shimmered white at dawn when our fingers caressed like a thousand leaves and we slid together curve unto curve in smooth youth Now, old and rough-branched, moving slowly as if on crusted snow, we turn to embrace one another under white, uncertain skies, and sleep in faint sunlight

With the sweet sting of strawberries pressed on my tongue I sit at the table staring at the white rose bud he gave me last night I sniff the tilting bloom watch it spread one petal like an awkward wing while out the window a faint crescent moon crosses a pale blue sky and out of spring

Your hand presses up my body's side and waits and this waiting, this gentle gesture like a steady sun behind fast moving clouds allows us to consider who we are to one another Your smile ripples into my thoughts moves me toward you my dress slips off as we step out of clothes shudder slightly in the cool air sway inwardly and surrender to one another

Crocuses thrust Their bright leaves Up from the ground Like crossed swords Heralding spring When a young boy Hops on a bicycle Looking for hills to coast And pedals quickly With all his might To go anywhere And nowhere special

Sprawling regally after our splendor unable to contain my joy I move from under your shoulder tilt my head back and send an open kiss into the universe and dream of burning a hole through a black map of stars to form a new star for you, for love of you

Back in my hometown I wander over to the high school recalling the rippling laughter amid clanging locker doors and how we once cheered on sunlit playing fields where we felt immortal Today my friend Dave arrived home from war wrapped in a flag and at the town green surrounded by silent churches I think of what we might have said before he left for West Point Tears fall for awhile until I imagine how Dave would make jokes right now to take my pain away and so I leave our hometown grateful for the innocence allowed us however briefly

I am floating on milk white clouds moving at the pace of sleep glancing back to bid you farewell Your life's been my long dream of love so sing a song go ring a bell all is well

I sit tossing out crumpled rose petals from the bottom of a drawer lists I kept of what I laughed about while you were on some trip And I'll always remember wandering with you on sunlit paths near woods the splendor-- because we turned to go in

I sit and fondly recall how through the years your voice ranged back over our lives like rolling waves churning shiny pebbles to find past incidents that worked out all right and comforted me In your absence I wish you could see these wisps of fog drift up and slowly float around a majestic tree where birds on topmost branches sit easily and sway flick tails and fly away still calling to each other

I should have nodded at her, I told myself, yet I did not feel I could Is that really so? Yes. No. Maybe so. But then again and sometimes even again I think, rather convincingly, or so it seems, I should have nodded at her nevertheless I knew her name, street and house and sitting on her couch had sipped tea It was too late now for I didn't give my eyes that soothing glint of recognition, but remained where I was

We stay busy all day in autumn jumping into piles of fallen leaves enjoying the crisp, crunching sounds stretching way back on the dry ground to look at orange maple trees against the bright blue sky jump up to search for hickory nuts rush home with bulging pockets to crack and share their sweet meat

Suddenly there's snow blowing in gusts as I gather up my baby and drive as fast as I can to the hospital grateful for bits of mud on the icy road Clutching the wheel and stopping my tears that would blur vision I quietly sing a lullaby while my mind searches for everything I know about first aid His raspy breathing scratches against my heart like branches against windows his delicate, flame-like life dances before me and I only know that it must not go out I silently plead for his life in the waiting room promise to give up anything, everything

After his funeral guests depart wind and rain tip flower heads and outside she sits down to play a cello that is not there Her skirt spreads, lace begins to show until she slips to the ground like a delicate fern splattering in heavy rain

In my walk without you I try whistling, going on while sounds of pebbles crunching underfoot stop when I stop and remind me that I'm alone Suddenly, wild irises flare along the dull path again and again they flare leaving me with exclamations I want to make to you

Asian-looking Americans may be fifth generation citizens of the U.S.A. and still asked, "Where are you from?" instead of, "Are you from around here?" The stack of deposit slips was gone so I went to ask a bank officer where to get one and told to get in line like everyone else I wonder: Racial prejudice? Someone with a bad day? The clerk at the supermarket greets each person through the line except me because he thinks I don't speak English --so let's keep working to understand a multicultural America

Now tossing out lists I kept of what I laughed about while you were gone and crumpled old roses petals at the bottom of my drawer I recall a sunlit path splendor when we turned to go in and slowly I sense how poetry was practice for summoning imagination now that you are gone