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~~~ HOW DO YOU LIKE AMERICA?
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~~~ AND OTHER POEMS
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~~~ BY
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~~~ KEIKO MATSUI GIBSON
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MY BEAUTIFUL HIROSHIMA TEACHER
Crimson sunset in Lake Michigan.
I think of a beautiful woman
in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped.
Was she fortunate not to be killed
with the 200,000 others?
Was she unfortunate to stay alive?
Bright light
crushed her breath
windows burst
she went out
she woke far off
stuck all over
with broken glass
she couldn't scream
in blood and pain
no word would do
or will ever do
she felt the end of the world.
Fujiko is more beautiful because of her scars
Fujiko is more beautiful because many men and women have loved her
Fujiko is more beautiful because she has lived alone
Fujiko is more beautiful because she has taught
many students
Fujiko is more beautiful because she has always
loved Hiroshima
Fujiko is more beautiful because she plans to live
in a tiny farmhouse there
Fujiko is more beautiful because she does not fear
the inevitable cancer
Fujiko is more beautiful because of her peace.
The wormy scar on her neck
tells the folly of history.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
REXROTH REXROTH'S EPIPHANY: JUNE 6, 1982
You disappeared too modestly
like an autumn leaf falling invisibly.
Your powerful torso and pink face
composed a Matisse painting.
Your ramen tasted as if Marichiko had boiled it.
The womb Mandala--red and red and red--
symbol of the organic universe
was your natural place.
You were a fiery Buddha, a raging Fudō-myō
loving tangled Japanese hair.
I felt small beside you,
your beaming power quieted me,
you soulfully called me _Keiko-san._
Your eloquence was a sword
piercing masks of snobbery
cracking the ice of authority along the winter lakeshore.
When your moon was waning
you changed from Giant to Dwarf.
Constant pain,
wires taped to your stomach,
choking up phlegm--
everything about you saddened me overwhelmingly.
But your eyes were more eloquent than ever.
You did not let me blink.
I held your thin hands and gazed at you.
I saw Carol-san kissing your lips so sacredly
that time and space were frozen.
I forgot how to breathe and move my feet.
You became a star on June 6
in Orion, your constellation.
Hope you take a long bath
in eternally consoling moonlight.
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RAKAN'S STILL WATERS
Rakan (Japanese for Sanskrit _Arhat_), the original
Indian followers of Shakyamuni Buddha, have often
been portrayed by Chinese and Japanese artists.
Candidates for Buddhahood
striving for no approval
live in easy retirement.
Bodhidharma and Lao Tzu
sometimes visit them
speaking soft nothings
over cupped hands of water
and overdone smoky mushrooms.
Confucius and Mencius never join
this ridiculous meeting
because they are too busy
teaching morality and crafty wisdom.
Rakan don't have anything to teach.
Animals rather than people
plants rather than animals
rocks rather than plants
are better friends for Rakan.
Waves are lapping the beach.
Trees are rustling in breezes.
Birds are resting on fences.
People are sick in bed.
Raccoons wash fish.
Rakan are everywhere.
When you recognize them
they are no longer strangers.
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FOR YOU
Climbing the frozen hill
told I was pregnant
I watched my breath melt icicles
the cells of my body were dancing toward the sky
blood throbbed blue in my hardening breasts
I could not help but talk to you
knowing you were growing
ears, eyes, and mouth
imagining the day you would talk to me
and see the sky with me
you were surely living in me
your only home was my womb
now you are homeless
I feel you everywhere
I will always be your mother you did not get to see.
(Summer, 1985
Crystal Lake, Michigan)
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AN EXISTENCE SO NEAR SO FAR
You started growing in my womb
a miracle of the universe.
You made me throw up for six weeks.
But I could not be sure you were you
till you first knocked on my tummy
at 6:22 in the evening
just after tofu and rice
on the 10th of May
1986.
You were gentle but sure
telling your existence
to your mother.
I screamed for your father!
He rushed in
caressed my tummy.
I felt like dying for joy.
My love for you soared.
Now you bump me inside
turning somersaults
rippling my skin.
Is it dark in there?
How does my voice sound to you?
Are you suffering when you hiccup?
You are so near
I can almost hold you in my arms
and yet you are too far away
for me to see.
I wish you would crawl out of my navel
and say "Hello!"
I want you to suck my nipples in peace.
I want to kiss you until my saliva all dries out.
In this overwhelming joy I forget that
you are mortal.
Don't come out too soon!
I wish you could stay in me forever
so I could believe in Eternity.
Am I living with the secret of the universe?
Pregnancy is not simply preparation for birth.
Pregnancy is the birth of myself.
As long as we are born we grow
we suffer from sickness,
we age, and pass away.
During this long but too short journey
we glimpse eternal life
flickering light
which makes life endurable.
The pain of creation
the joy of creation.
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NAME AND BABY
Name and baby are born.
Name lives longer than baby.
Climbing up a small hill
always I find a graveyard
surrounded by thick green woods.
Flowers modestly but proudly
console the dead.
Approaching the tomb
my joints ache.
Fear gushes from my forehead.
After all, I may need a religion.
In the grass, inscriptions of the dead
seem more real than the dead.
Henry Miller, Muriel Rukeyser, Alfred Hitchcock
Peter Sellers, Prime Minister Ohira
and my father-in-law George Gibson
left our world last year.
Where did they go?
Where are they?
Late Sunday morning
black Chinese shoes scatter
on the Persian carpet.
Looking at an amber teapot
I remember an old woman in a white dress
who gave it to me--
the widow of the man
who groaned lion-like in the war
and died from ennui of citizenship
in a so-called comfortable basement.
Her theatrical talk and her skeleton
of dreams which failed to be pink
cast sad, appealing shadows.
She definitely existed before me
and she knew me.
What is her name?
I did not even ask.
Is she still alive?
Drinking tea from her teapot
my stomach assumes life and death--
nurturing milk with morbid tea.
My hands wobble, pulling in
the image of a baby that can be
Cloud or Flower, Bird or Lion--
names for a blank sheet of paper
as dazzling as the marble
of the tomb.
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BELATED LETTER
My old friend raped at 17
how can we toast your life?
Your ski instructor
taught you suspicion of men.
Your comrades were
pain and hatred
till you met B...
proletarian wit
compassionate lover.
Connective tissues
spread through your body and world.
But after his infidelity
you detested men
turned lesbian
separatist
clipped short your
burning red hair and
ridiculed my marriage.
How could I
so new from Japan
understand?
Was it my fault
perplexed, overwhelmed
recoiling?
I needed you
a heart-friend to share
horizons of solitude.
But you said
"Having children's a sin
in this patriarchal age."
Your green almond eyes sparkled.
To awaken as women
you wanted us to show
our vaginas.
Undressing you watched me
timid, reluctant
till I said, "I'm not ready
to be exposed."
To what?
Exposed to the feminine world?
When you said, "I'm wet!"
what could I feel?
Is my suffering just mine?
Is the sky vast?
I kept searching for myself
any self at all
beyond language
beyond meaning
beyond senses
beyond symbols.
1986, Chernobyl assailing
the earth
I gave birth to a son
feeling death in life.
Seasons change with the wind.
We are aging like everything else.
I have not yet heard from you.
Bright orange maple leaves
flirt with cold air
as if restlessly desperate
for a damp lover.
Do you hear the rustling
of pearl shells
their murmurings
of grief?
Misty daybreak
brings a message
from the moon:
stop distinguishing
accept devotedly.
Men and women
fall in love
make love
leave love
and will love mysteriously
so long as rivers
wash away
residues
of humanity.
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I AM IN AMERICA AND AM NOT
I can't seem to sleep forever
disgusted with this black jacket
loved so much for years--
Damn it!--laughing at me
on the white sheet
like the cast-off skin of Satan.
Throw it away--hero of hell--
frigidity piercing my skin.
I am a comb without teeth.
When I was a boy in Japan
expecting to be a salaryman
I imagined nothing like this.
Seducing me
is Japan far-off
in steam from a bowl of nabe--
the country of mothers
whose hands are yellow
from eating too many oranges
and fathers who sip sake
with decreasing tolerance
worrying about nagging.
Time is really strange.
People like Proust and Woolf
(who are like Proust and Woolf?)
were great after all
spraying Bergsonian streams
of consciousness.
I hear out of season
temple gongs of New Year's Eve
and I don't.
Where am I?
Shrill Canton dialect
of the Chinese couple upstairs
and the sound of the shower
of the Republican businessman next door
have gone elsewhere.
Are they dead?
Am I?
I might as well drink courageously
brandy and cognac
to shake
this ridiculous obsession
called self-consciousness.
It is reasonably said
that Japan is a fragile flower.
But I surely do not like
a flower-arranging wife
devoted to children
a boring boss to bow to
and sleeping away my life
on subways with empty men.
In the mirror
I find my face covered with bloody tears.
Spreading my arms, I hold the torso of night tight
then see that what in front of me is you.
I was just thinking of killing myself from loneliness.
I know you are awfully busy
but would you talk to me awhile?
I will fix strong green tea smelling of the Japan Sea.
Removing the top of the tea can
I see grotesque Caucasian faces
filling it
saying, "This tea stinks
like filthy Oriental breath!"
I push them back under the lid.
Those guys just don't take us seriously.
I can't conceal their words
that crush my brain.
Life hits the bottom.
I will never forget them
like nightmares after turning over
on a stinking mattress.
Goddamn it!
Am I that yellow
that ugly
that inhuman?
You would never understand
back in the bureaucracy
where there are no surprises --
after graduating from a National University
counting on a beautiful, intelligent wife
who still loves to shop with her mother
ecstatic in a department store--
you would never understand the reason
why I came this far to America
a vagabond
ripping my hair
crying and struggling over
existence and identity --
no problems in Japan.
You cannot understand
why I cannot be you:
how I detest the Japan of sentimental folk-songs.
The other day
watching "Seven Samurai" in Urbana
the rain on the battle at the end
was my rain
my flood of resignation.
I almost lost my mind.
My life is still damp.
It will never dry out
even back in Japan--
that eternally damp country.
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HOW DO YOU LIKE AMERICA?
Taking off from Osaka
I saw my mother standing
with a handkerchief over her eyes
and my father trying to hide
a hole in his heart-mind.
Then my country blurred.
For seven years I have heard:
"Where do you come from?
China? Korea? Japan?
How long have you been in America?
Is your family still in Japan?
I sure bet they miss you!
Did you meet your husband there?
Does he speak Japanese?
You speak English very well!
Where did you learn to speak it?
How do you like America?"
I pity, fear, and love it.
America is huge and sick
optimistic and terrifying
immature but lovable.
Americans' friendly questions
dislocated my Japanese bones.
I automatically answered
like a dog watering its mouth:
"I was born in Kyoto, Japan.
It is a modern ancient city.
I've been in America since
Jimmy Carter was President.
My parents are still in Osaka.
Because I'm an only child
we miss each other a lot.
I met my husband at a bus stop
near Osaka University
where he taught.
He has been learning Japanese
ever since.
I have studied English
since I was 14.
Though I am working on a Ph.D.
English is still very strange."
"How do I like America?
I like America very much!
It's a beautiful country!
People are kind and friendly!
Life is so comfortable here!
Furnaces keep us warm!
Public places are clean!
Not so many people smoke
here as in Japan."
"So you are from Japan!
My son married a Korean
who eats kim chi on pancakes.
It's unbelievably hot!
Do you like it too?
My husband was in Japan after the War and loved it!
I used to know a Japanese girl in Hawaii.
She invited me for sushi and tea-ceremony.
Her name was Keeko too.
Her hair was so straight and black.
Such a cute little thing.
Japan is one of the places I'd love to visit some time.
It must be very beautiful.
My mother does flower-arranging in Traverse City.
How do you like America?"
How do I like America?
These cheerful Americans
much better at talking than listening
throw balls persistently without receiving any
and flash commercials of their lives.
Life goes on in many entangling circles.
Americans are hectic and confusing.
When do they calm down?
The land is airy, spacious, masculine.
No canes to hold to here, to stick to:
you can draw your own road where you wish.
It's a country of gushing power
uncontrollable.
Suspended between Japan and America
a stranger in both lands
alienating every being
I have stayed awake all night
hearing drips of
Japan America
Japan America
Japan America
I have lost myself many times
eroded by changing dogmas.
My friend A, becoming a separatist-lesbian
left me
like an old towel under the sink.
My friend B, a conservative pro-family housewife
insists only womanly virtues
are pleasing to her husband
producing many children.
My friend C cannot find a steady job
because he has long hair, like a little girl
and really believes in his poetry.
My friend D, always frustrated
about her health and family,
worries in a suffocating room
with no windows.
My friend E, embittered
by the political impasse
arrogantly retires to nature
to be a weekend hermit.
My friend F, still plays like a kid,
dreaming of making money
to buy perpetual comfort.
Divorce has forced many children
to fly through the air
helpless and resentful
their hearts beating in vain.
The word _Marriage_ rings hollow
The family is replaced by therapists.
As more people consume their energy
in jogging, aerobics, and health clubs
where is the food where it's needed
on the other side of the world?
People dread fat more than
nuclear bombs.
In Japan I was suffocated
panting for sheer freedom
but there I suffer from too much air
too chaotic to feel free.
My honeymoon with America
has ended
something has ended
I am ready for a separation.
America is blurring.
Just as we cannot count snowflakes
my karma piles up across the Pacific Ocean.
My parents are opening their eyes.
They see me winging to them.
In Japan I will speak again
transparently, as I wish
to mother, father, and strangers.
I simply want warmth of hands
I want tears turning me into a river.
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SHORTS
Train whistle
pierces the opaque night:
where does the sound go?
* * *
"Marry me,"
he said to the bald woman
from chemotherapy
vomiting sorrow and joy.
* * *
You and dog.
Dog and you.
Which is which?
You bark too.
Dog saddens too.
* * *
"I still don't trust people
in suits and ties," said he.
"I don't trust people,"
said the chipmunk: period.
* * *
Dreaming the present
recollecting the future
I float in air
looking for an island.
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The poems in this collection were written after the publication of
STIR UP THE PRECIPIBLE WORLD (in Japanese and English, Milwaukee:
the Burtons' Morgan Press, 1983). I am grateful for publication of
some of these poems in the following:
U. S. A.:
Other Side of the River: POETRY BY CONTEMPORARY JAPANESE WOMEN,
edited by Leza Lowitz. INTERNATIONAL SHADOWS PROJECT - MILWAUKEE
1990 CATALOGUE, edited by Karl Young, Kenosha, Wisconsin: Light and
Dust Books, 1990. KOKORO: HEART-MIND, poems and prose with Morgan
Gibson, Frankfort, Michigan: Kokoro, 1981. NEXUS, edited by Bob
Moore.
Japan:
KYOTO REVIEW, edited by Katagiri Yuzuru. PRINTED MATTER,
poetry edited by Daniel Webster, Tom Dow, and Denis Doyle. THE PLAZA,
edited by Nishida Shunji, Taylor Mignon, and Joel Baral.
Copyright &169 1994 by Keiko Matsui Gibson.