Monday, November 29, 2010

Day 501: to my grandmother

throwing this out there in case anyone else was thinking about her today a little more than usual. Love you all!To Clara,
You were the woman everyone around you was afraid to be
so we tied our dreams to your curls
watched them fall to your sides
called it a failure when you died before the turn of the millennium
and cried to the morning
to the mountains
to the rain
to the magma
and cold
to all the things we could see
all the things that remind us of home
and you
and fire

we were the people too weak to let you go
when you left
it cut holes in our skin
like pores
more like oceans
like ducts
like things that drip
and leak

we crashed your car into a telephone pole at midnight
and called your number
to hear your voice
over and over
even when it was gone
we kept calling
pretended it was a wrong number
hoping the universe would restore you
if we insisted that we needed it to
but it didn’t

we kept your subscriptions anyways
we collect your mail
we laugh at the irony of magazines with our faces smiling with obama and your name addressed at the bottom
we try not to but we are weak so
we cry when no one else is looking
because we think we are supposed to move on
supposed to have let go by now
11 years later
we're still holding on
even though we've lived a longer life with you gone dead then alive
it still feels wrong

we still visit the white stones
the turtle designs
you and your granddaughter
my cousin
who i don’t remember
didn’t know well enough
who was so young
couldn't have been that much older than i am now
how years close distance with the days
how that’s terrifying considering the circumstances
we don’t know what to say
we look at pictures and see ghost of women we miss in the most tangible ways
we weep over the ocean
trade salt with the sea

now
we cry when we realize how similar we are
that genes travel fast through Hawaiian women to men to women
a Hawaiian family spreading cancer like wildfire
we are afraid of the realities of our existence
the possibility that someone somewhere is afraid to be the women and men we already are
our curls may too be tied to someone else’s dreams
soon they may fall to our sides
we may be called failure when we die
before letting go
completely

2 comments:

  1. Aloha Jamz,
    Beautiful tribute to some beautiful women and you are one of them. :)

    For you a reflective short one:

    Love is never on time
    Time is never enough
    Love is
    In time

    Love Auntie Laura

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