For this Mother’s Day この母の日に
ママ、１９２９年 (?) に生まれ、２０１１年 ９月１７日にあの世へ去って行きました。この母の日、日々と変わらず、ママの優しさと怒鳴り声が心を休ましてくれる。どうもありがとう。
On this Mother’s Day, Like any day, My mother’s kindness as well as her commanding words, renders my heart calm. Born in 1929(?), and passing to the other world on September 17, 2011. Thank you Mama.
In honor this year, I repeat my poem for her, that was featured in the Generation Nexus: Peace in the Postwar Era exhibit at the Presidio in San Francisco from November 2013 to April 2014: http://njahs.org/640/portfolio/generation-nexus-peace-in-the-post-war-era/, and published first, in Kartika Review, Spring Issue 2012: https://issuu.com/kartikareview/docs/kartika_issue12, and in Inquiring Mind – Issue on War & Peace Poetry: http://www.inquiringmind.com/Articles/WarPeacePoems.html.
For Kiyoko, Epitaph/Chikai *
Mama’s silent hand in mine we remember traverse
history’s ten million wars.
Her Last breath passes through me
survival’s constant fire.
I, her Occupier’s baby
tremble in black yellow through tombs
ancient colors
falling
bombs Mama persimmon blossoms.
Time after time Kiyoko becomes
sword
desire
wounds
rain.
* Chikai: Vow, promise (in Japanese language). Without Kanji characters and written in hiragana or katakana, this can have the meanings near, close as well as basement or cellar. So ‘Chikai’ means: a promise, a vow, near, closeness, the cellar (which connotes things put below and kept as momentos, memories, the forgotten, the forsaken). Historical and personal continuities, relics, secrets, baggage, intimacy, preciousness.
Posted in: Memory, Mother's Day, Poetry, Postwar Japan, 母
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