POEMS
Theme: MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD, Writers Address the Nuclear Age Performed at the James A. Little and Guild Theaters, NM July 2005
Gladys woke up an eye at a time.
Rolling over, a smile crossed her tired brown face
as she peered into her open closet.
She rose from bed,
Taking less than three steps to the garments,
in her small project-apartment bedroom.
A glimpse in the mirror of her muscle-less, fat, mahogany colored arms,
And sparse needing to be dyed and styled hair,
clustered in shoots like clumps of brown broccoli,
Didn't bother her today.
She reached for a red dress still in its plastic cover, and headed for the bathroom.
Gladys' five children, six to thirteen in age, sat at the kitchen table waiting for breakfast as usual.
Listening to her slow…shuffled…dragging…approach, made them silently "Uht-oh," each other.
Their father frequently said, "I love her, but your mother's crazy,"
And they foresaw this, as another example, of what had sent him to an apartment across town.
Entering the kitchen with "Ohayo gozaimasu minasan!" and a bow,
was only half the shock.
The white powdered make-up dusted on her ebony hued face,
Hot red narrow hipped kimono that was never intended for a woman with such an
ample behind,
Huge pointy red hat, with all kinds of danglies--pearls, flowers and what not;
And the little white socks and maroon sandals that split her big toe from the one
next to it--giving her a psychotic Geisha look;
Left the children speechless even though they wanted to shout.
I said, "Ohayo gozaimasu minasan," quipped Gladys.
Trying to follow suit,
The children bowed from their seated positions,
And did their best to imitate the words, stumbling over them and each other.
Gladys opened the refrigerator door.
"Does anybody know what today is?"
Cinda, the middle child wanted to say, "Mommy's a freak day," but didn't.
"August sixth,
The day they dropped atomic bombs on our people."
"What people is she talking about?
Does she really think we're Japanese?" Dena thought in silence.
"Tore up three hundred thousand of our people.
Makes me cry.
Makes me sick," Gladys said while tossing unsliced sushi on the breakfast table,
Followed by something completely unidentifiable.
Dennis, the youngest,
And least afraid, said,
"Mommy are you going to work?"
"I always goes to work. Work is where your righteousness lies."
"Are you going like that?" Cinda mustered the courage to ask.
"I'm in mourning.
The world is in mourning.
Some of us know and others are asleep.
But their souls remember.
During the day, they're going to feel like killing themselves,
and won't know why,
But us,
We'll know.
Now this, this is a reisha mushroom,
a delicacy in Japan, oh yeah.
Very expensive and hard to get.
Took three buses to Jersey for it."
Dena rolled her eyes, thinking,
"All the way to New Jersey and she comes back with one mushroom for six people? Umph."
"I wrote notes for you,
'cause, you'll be late for day camp today.
We're going to make orange gami cranes--
Like that little girl did in the Japanese hospital trying to beat death.
We'll hang them in the trees on the way to the river,
Where we're going to launch lanterns in comme--commer--oh, uhh--
"Commemoration?" chimed in Della."
"That's it baby.
But we have to make them first.
So, we're going to the park,
Gather twigs,
I've got string,
And been saving tissue and other kinds of special papers."
Peter, the oldest and quietest said,
"I don't think they let you launch things in the Hudson River."
"They launches oil off them boats, and filth out them fact'ries,
We gon' launch lanterns today! I promise you that!"
"How come we never did this before?" asked Angie.
"Wasn't necessary.
But now, everybody's trying to forget.
Everybody's actin' like it didn't happen,
Or worse, shoulda happened,
And gearin' up for the next one, in Viet Nam.
I ain't mad at 'em,
They cain't help it,
Sometimes the only way to wake up somebody from a drunken sleep,
Is hit 'em with something,
So this is it."
"They started it," muttered Della under her breath,
making everybody else hold theirs for Gladys' response,
that began with a sloooow turn.
"We never really know how a war starts between nations,
But we all know how it ends.
Talk and money.
So, they should do that in the first place,
insteada killin' and maimin' folks got nuthin' to do with it."
Gladys looked out the window at the sea of African descended people,
Who comprised her neighborhood.
"My father, and other colored soldiers,
Where there--
Trying to fit in here,
And you see what it got us
But we're not doing black history today."
"Now, this, this is an authentic green tea ceremony."
After breakfast, and drinking weak Lipton tea with
green food coloring in tiny cups,
Gladys led crane making out of loose-leaf paper, crayons,
and a pattern she found in a craft book.
The family threaded the cranes with yarn,
And once outside, hung them in trees throughout the projects,
and along the way to the park.
There, the family,
My family,
Relaxed.
Almost had fun,
except for the intermittent horror stories,
Gladys, my mother,
relayed about burning flesh and broken hearts.
She made us imagine our lives under the same circumstances,
as we fashioned unrefined lanterns,
and wrote private wishes for Japanese people and everyone else in the world.
At the river,
we launched our lanterns lit with candles
Some people inquired and joined us.
Most stared, and laughed.
But Gladys', my mother's dignity,
was mightier than their linguistic or pointed finger swords.
…Every August sixth,
I go to the closet,
in my well-appointed suburban home,
And take out her kimono,
and dangly hat.
I put them on, in commemoration,
of my mother's sensitive madness,
And 300,000 or more of our people,
who lost all,
or part of their lives,
in one fashion or another,
on that day.
…And for the millions who are asleep and still don't know
or care,
I wake my children with,
"Ohayo gozaimasu minasan!"
And a bow.