"little plum": erasure poems

These erasures are from two facing pages of Little Plum, a young adult book published by Rumer Godden in 1962.

                                    messages

         happen.
               Miss Flower’s bowls and tea
                           happen.

teas sets,
cups,       bowls.


                           (a Japanese
                 teapot.)

 “Japanese people seem to have tea with
everything – green tea – I can make that
with paint water.”

                                       (shiny black
                                         lacquer

                            bowls.)

II.

                           dolls are used to having

dollhouse food   
             the size of half your little fingernail.

                    each bowl held rice,

                                      fish as small as ants,

                 silver in        red sauce     (Japanese

people are very fond fish
  vegetable,
                          cake,
                sugar.         There were chop-
sticks made from pine needles.

                                     the tea was hot.   

                the teapot    

looked                                      real.   

War Hero

My Great-Grandfather

My great-grandfather, Naoyuki Kuzume, was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Pacific War. Growing up, I know just this: his name is in Japanese history books. He fought an important battle. He committed suicide upon defeat.
   In my child’s mind, I picture seppuku, ritual suicide by sword, an image later colored by reading Mishima in my college Japanese lit class. I see a faceless soldier on his knees. I see little else, no cave wall nor jungle terrain, no humidity nor heat, no sun nor moon. He is a sentence in a book I can’t read; he is the sound of pride in my mother’s voice.
    In graduate school, I begin asking questions. I Google his name. I buy and study a book about his last battle on the island of Biak, New Guinea. The book is self-published by the author, the verity of details murky. Some likely facts: he is the leader of approximately 11,000 Japanese soldiers occupying the island, valuable for its airfields (a refueling stop on the flight between warring countries). The Japanese general has recently restrategized in the Pacific-- reduced its defense perimeter and essentially abandoned its troops in New Guinea.

US Army Sgt John P. Gallagher-
South Pacific- WWII- Island of Biak 1945
http://www.ww2incolor.com/us-army/Sgt.html

   MacArthur heads up the mission to overtake Biak, a mission known as Operation Hurricane, May 27, 1944-July 22, 1944.
    “’The light enemy resistance at the beachhead held little hint of what was to come’, recalled MacArthur. Lieutenant Colonel Naoyuki Kuzume put up a fierce defense that included tanks, which was rare for Japanese troops in this theater of the Pacific War. Kuzume utilized his knowledge of the island's topography and devised a brilliant defense plan that fully utilized the terrain...
    It was the first time Japanese troops effectively used caves as defensive strongholds. Before this point, Japanese troops defended the islands at the beach; when all was lost, surviving troops formed a banzai charge, and the battle was over. After the battle, the Japanese began to include caves as an option, which dramatically increased American casualty rates during operations to secure the subsequent islands...
   His effective defense even rendered the airfields, newly captured by the Allies, useless. On 28 Jun, Kuzume's command post, located in one of the numerous caves, was breached. He committed ritual suicide."
    Most of us are descendants of soldiers, survivors, war heroes. Facts can be researched, stories recorded, but the question I struggle with now is: How do I feel? As I read war narratives--while drinking my iced coffee in a Park Slope cafe--I feel proud. Wait. Proud?--though he was partly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers? Proud of his intelligence? Proud of his sense of honor and duty?
     I also feel profoundly sad. Heatstroke, skin ulcers, malaria--there were many more dangers than gunfire. The troops had few rations (supply routes cut off by American military) and survived on potatoes in the dark passages of caves they’d tunneled into. One reseacher even suggests there was evidence of cannibalism in the caves.
    Did they know they wouldn’t escape?
    Is such suffering lightened, transformed when undertaken for love of country and emperor worshiped as god?
   Last night, instead of working on this blog, I watched "Duets" on Hulu. Life as a writer is a series of confrontations and evasions, attack and retreat, even though no one is forcing me look back, to ask questions such as: where is the body?
    I turn up the volume on the TV. 

   

Happy Grandparents' Day, Grandpa David!

April 27 was my father's birthday. He would have been 74. The day also happened to be Grandparents' Day at my niece's preschool. I talked to my niece Izumi, who is four, on the phone yesterday:
    "Hi!"
    "Hi! I'm Izumi!"
    "Yes, hi! I'm April! I miss you!"
    "I miss you too!"
    "I heard yesterday was Grandparents' Day at school. What did you do?"
    Silence. My sister, in background: "Remember, you had lunch in the gym with Reiko baa-chan?"
    "Oh. Yeah! We ate lunch! in the gym!"
   I spoke to my sister, who worries about how to explain Grandpa David's passing to Izumi: if my sister were to say Grandpa David "got sick," would Izumi become frightened every time someone sneezed? I realized that as the family storyteller, I could take it upon myself to explain her Grandpa's life and death in a sensitive, yet meaningful way:

Dear Izumi,

On April 27, 1950-something, your Grandpa David was born in a Chicago hospital on a cold, windy day. Grandpa David was special from the very beginning. His birth mother loved him soooo much, she wanted to give him a happier home than she could. So one day, when the stork dropped him off on her doorstep, she wrapped him in swaddling and took him to the nearest hospital. There, from a row of gleaming white baskets filled with little pink babies,  Great Grandpa and Grandma picked him out, adopted him, and brought him home. They were so happy! He was their little angel.
     As he grew older, his blue eyes remained blue and his blond hair remained blond, suggesting an Irish-Catholic background, though only God really knows.
    Grandpa David was a mischievous, bright, handsome boy. He went to high school in Euclid, Ohio, where he was a four-time track and cross-country champion, just like your mom.

    When he was 18 years old, on New Year's Eve, he ran away from home and enlisted in the army. He almost wound up stationed with Elvis Presley, but Elvis had a movie to make and was sent off to Hawaii. Too bad. Grandpa David did some stuff in the army and traveled to Japan, where he fell in love with the country and its traditional, yet modern ways. He returned to the U.S. and attended Ohio State University, where he studied to be a creative writer. When he realized that the writing life was totally depressing and futile, he went back to Japan, met Reiko baa-chan, and got married. A Japanese-American stork dropped off your mom and me as little babies on their doorstep, and he spent the next 17 years working and raising a family.
   One day, when he was an older man, he was struck by a serious illness. An illness so rare you should think about it again, because it will never come up, I promise. He went to the hospital, fell asleep and never woke.
      Why? Sometimes that just happens to people, and we don't know why.
     The good news is, now Grandpa David is in Grandpa Heaven, which is right next to Doggie heaven, where dogs frolic amongts giant slabs of bacon and tennis balls all day long. Grandpa heaven is a giant living room strewn about with Laz-y Boys equipped with cup holders. Each Grandpa has his own TV screen that shows Superbowl games and James Bond movies 24/7. The best thing about Grandpa heaven is that they have strict visiting hours for Grandmas coming over from Grandma heaven. They can only nag their husbands on weekdays from 1pm-2pm.
    Yes, Grandpa heaven is a very happy place.
    The only problem is that children are not allowed there. But if you have a message for him, all you have to do is say it aloud, and he will hear you. You might not hear a reply right away, but if you really listen, you might hear a little voice that sounds like a rustle of leaves or whoosh of wind through the window screens: "Love ya, sweet cheeks. Sorry I missed Grandparents' Day."