The Scott & Laurie Oki Series in Asian American Studies
From a Three-Cornered World
NEW AND SELECTED POEMS
James Masao Mitsui
University of Washington Press Seattle and London
This book is published with the assistance of a grant from the Scott and Laurie Oki Endowed Fund for the publication of Asian American Studies, established through the generosity of Scott and Laurie Oki.
Copyright 1997 by James Masao Mitsui
Designed by Audrey Meyer
Cover designed by Glen Mitsui, Studio MD, featuring a photograph of Minoru Mitsui
Calligraphic brush strokes by Tad Wasa
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN 0-295-97598-9 (pbk.)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
This is for Lilly,
forever in love.
An artist is a person who lives in the triangle which remains after the angle which we may call common sense has been removed from this four-cornered world.Natsume Soseki, 18671916
Contents
I / from Journal of the Sun 1974
Destination: Tule Lake Relocation Center
May 20, 1942
She had raised the window
higher
than her head; then
paused
to lift wire spectacles,
wiping
sight back with a wrinkled
hand-
kerchief. She wanted to watch
the old
place until the trains passing
erased
the tarpaper walls and tin roof,
she had
been able to carry away
so little.
The fingers of her left
hand
worried two strings
attached
to a baggage tag
flapping
from her
lapel.
Photograph of a Child,
Japanese-American Evacuation,
Bainbridge Island, Washington,
March 30, 1942
The soft sound of his steps on the pier
is obscured by the heavy footfall
of the adults, rippling the planked deck.
One hand reaches above his head
to wrap around fathers ring finger,
the other clutches a balsa model
of a U.S. fighter plane, held
upside down against his chest.
He is the only one who uses this time
to peer between the cracks at his feet,
trying to see the shiny ribs of water,
imagine a monstrous flounder hugging
the sediment, both eyes staring
from the top of its flat head.
Picture of a Japanese Farmer, Woodlands,
California, May 20, 1942
His waiting becomes a time to hear thoughts, the sound
of unseen sparrows, the glance for any movement
from a road on the other side of dark eyes.
It is the tossing down of a cigarette,
the quiet imprint of a twisting foot.
Behind him a butcher paper sign on a mailbox
sells what will be awkward tomorrow. Feet in black
Sunday shoes are stable as the block of wood on end
used for a seat. Elbows on knees, he looks hard
at the packed earth. Another cigarette
waits between fingers like an artists brush.
Willows drift sap in their shadows, coating the man,
the ground and the top half of a discarded oil drum
on its side. The bottom has no viscous coat.
Dust will not adhere for this plain reason.
Section Hand, Great Northern Railway
I. LAMONA, 1953
Finding my fathers current
wine bottle slouched
in a wooden rainbarrel, one night,
I grabbed it by the neck
like an old, long-handled
grenade and tossed it over our
garage, towards the creek.
The dark glass tumbled,
somersaulted into the night,
a pint of used blood.
I planted another bottle
filled with rainwater and fragments
of dead leaves, hid, and could
only laugh when he came out
for a drink, sputtered and swore
at a world that wouldnt understand
half-Japanese, half-English.
II. SKYKOMISH, 1913. A PHOTOGRAPH
With eyebrows like black smears
of stage paint my father, at 25,
takes a stance on our front porch.
No one would dare brush past
his dark face, his pockets
conceal strong small hands.
No one would dare to tip
his bowler hat, ridicule
a checkered tie, or snap
those elastic bands anchoring
the loose sleeves of his shirt.
Links of a watch chain dangle
in an arc from a belt loop
to the watch pocket in his vest.
He is a match for the chair beside him:
its wood, carved like the ruffled
wing feathers of a pheasant.
The Morning My Father Died, April 7, 1963
The youngest son, I left the family inside and stood
alone in the unplanted garden by a cherry tree
we had grown ourselves, next to a burn barrel
smoldering what we couldnt give away or move
to Seattle. Looking over the rusty edge I could see
colors of volcano. Feathers of ash floated
up to a sky that was changing. I stared at the sound
of meadowlarks below the water tank
on the basalt cliff where the sun would come.
I couldnt stop smelling sagebrush, the creosote
bottoms of posts; the dew that was like a thunderstorm
had passed an hour before. Thoughts were trees
under a lake; that moment was sunflower, killdeer
and cheatgrass. Volunteer wheat grew strong
on the far side of our place along the old highway.
Undebergs rooster gave the day its sharper edge,
the top of the sun. Turning to go back inside,
twenty years of Big Bend Country
took off like sparrows from a startled fence.
Watching Bon Odori from a Vantage Point
with 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
