The Wasting Away

Oh my dearest love,
life melting off your thin bones,
choked out by disease.

I clutch memories,
which slip away so easy,
my humanity.

The day at the zoo,
when the giraffe licked your face,
and the monkeys laughed,

or the carrousel,
on the backward elephant,
kissing away tears.

Your birthday party,
we ate your favorite cake,
but the dog stole most.

The swing-set is still,
stirred only by the north wind,
which brings omen chill.

Butterfly landed
on your nose with wings flapping
but it made you sneeze.

Riding on the train,
when your nose began to bleed,
I was in denial.

I saw you running
through Grandpa’s fresh spring clover,
but those times are gone.

The doctors pump drugs,
which are more poison than balm,
yet you waste away.

I remember then
my spoken promise to you.
Thus, I do not cry.

When I Dream

When I dream, I float away,
float away into the unclutchable sky.
I dream of shifting shadows,
shifting shadows which call my name.
When I dream I get swept around,
swept around like dry leaves in the wind.
I dream of your face scowling,
face scowling at my existence, annoyed.
When I dream I hear your taunting laughter,
taunting laughter all too real in my waking hours.
I dream of days without pain.
Without pain, you mock me in my misery.
When I dream, I dream of promised paradise,
promised paradise where you are good and kind.

These are mere dreams.
oh, that my reality and dreams were swapped,

I dream of long moments of gentle joy.
Gentle joy and hope’s promise keeps me here
when I dream.

The Mountain is King

From the mountain of the west
where the sun has set so oft’
a pyre alights the frightened night
with a growling high aloft.

With Sulki’s hand too tight,
and mine on Ravi’s tail
we stumbled through the dead of night
to a siren’s mournful wail.

The ground she shook so much
with the waters on the shore
we scrambled onto higher ground
as the waves came in for more.

I shivered on the rocks
as fiery bombs explode
Ravi licks my face and whines
while the lava eats the road

The mountain says he’s king
he shouts through out the night
his mantle falls in smoking swirls
of bone meal plaster white

When the sun awakes at last
and the sea breeze comes to giving
the mountain goes to sleep again
and our village counts the living

葬儀での幽霊

暁早 – Early Dawn
Wake up pink sky shine!
Stretch out and embrace the stars.
Touch the world with pearl.

Give me your beauty,
and bind me to the moment
lest I lose myself.

Fly away red clouds!
Do not bring a storm today.
I await Father.

Let me wear your robes!
So, I may hide from sorrow
and forget the past.

If today brings rain,
let not my tears be in vain,
nor my heart be cold.

早暁 – Dawn
I see the grand star,
the majesty in the east,
the sun arising.

Give me sunlight warm,
to melt my frozen heartache.
I so miss him now.

Father will come soon
to take me to the ancients
and lay my incense.

I hear the monks chant
up on the temple mountain
preparing the way.

If I do not go,
will my heart always be lost
and my love wander?

行列 – Procession
A stone pounds the nails,
to close the ornate coffin
and hide the dead flesh.

The monks walk with care,
that body in its wrappings,
empty and alone.

Seagulls greet the day,
but I have no joy within,
as the gong marks time.

Father bows his head,
Sister wears her Kimono,
Brother is not here.

The temple is rich
but our village is so poor
for new spirit names.

式葬 – Funeral Ceremony
The casket emptied,
the body is in flames now
burning with blue light.

The monks chant and bow
Sister falls and cries weeping
Father’s eyes are moist.

Chopsticks pick through bones
Sister and Father at once
put them in the urn.

First the toes go in
so the body is upright
and last is the skull.

The dust of ash flows,
as the village stands close by
to cover the bones.

墳墓 – Tomb
Father and the urn,
Silent, the village watches
his walking uphill.

Alone, he will place,
what is left inside the tomb.
There he cries alone.

Brother will not come,
until he leaves Tokyo,
a two day train ride.

Sister comes up next,
to lay the incense upon,
the rain speckled stone.

As she walks away,
I feel myself rising up,
At last, I am free.

Courage of the Innocent

I hold her hand upon her bed, bones brittle, skin thinning and clear.
Tubes and wires about her head, my whole body is shaking in fear.
Cancer came for one so fair, robbing and wrecking her life.
Chemo took her curly hair, and soon she goes under the knife.

“It isn’t fair,” I cry in the dark of night, when my soul lays bared to my God.
“Why her and not me,” I mourn for her plight, “I should walk the path that she’s trod.”
But she doesn’t complain at the needles and pain, as the doctors prepare for theater.
and she quietly goes where nobody knows and she doesn’t rebuke her creator.

It is said that saints young and old are not always the valiant and bold.
Yet, I disagree as I’m forced to see her courage as she’s laying there cold.