the woman's arrangements were unrestrained;
the native patrons of her shop delighted
in calling them floral derangements.
Her winged friend was a wash of iridescence
among autumn ferns and lacquered urns, like kami
bearing whispers from Nagano. His bamboo cage
stayed open--like her, he was not indigenous
to a cage. Holding only the words she'd learned
as a child, she left all doors ajar. The bird would
bob and tilt in time with her moving hands, until
once more she'd shoo him through the morning window.
Like her, he was not indigenous to California streets:
by noon he'd return to shelter in the maple's rust-
red leaves; and by evening, back to the sill he'd glide
to watch her turn the sign on the door:
Hai, she'd sigh, as he lingered expectantly near,
reminding her of the mountains near her home.
(c)Allen M Weber 2009
Shuziko (Miya) Miyasaka died in an automobile accident nearly three decades in a land she'd never accept as her home.
ReplyDeleteFive years after her death, her eighty-one year-old husband sold the family business--a nursery--and with the proceeds bought a yacht to sail her ashes back to her beloved island.
Articles (and probably poems) have been written in praise of her husband's heroism and of his subsequent death. This one's for Miya.
Allen M Weber