Nearing the end of our first long cemetery walk in a long while, Lilith and I started our final uphill on Hui Kelu. A man on the other side of the street caught sight of us and walked across the street. "You might not remember me (I'm Rod) he said, but we met in the cemetery one time, where I walk with my friend, the tall haole woman. I got your books, and I love them, and I bought one for her, too." I did remember! I asked his last name, and he told me. Probably the last person with that Portuguese name on the island, he said. His great-grandmother had been full Hawaiian; she married a Chinese man; their daughter married a Portuguese man. With each generation he detailed came a percentage of Hawaiian blood. He's only been left with 1/8 %. Went to public schools all the way through, got two Associates degrees from HCC. The first was in drafting, but he didn't see a future in construction, so he went to the Pearl Harbor shipyard and got another degree there. He leaned over to Lilith and said, "you somebody." I pointed the way to the eucalyptus tree in the park, and we parted ways.
When I was younger, my mother would ask me if I wrote only for other poets. Maybe I did. But now I write for Pearl Harbor shipyard workers; guys who work in the cemetery (Ola had his baby, I'm told); the woman whose husband and mother-in-law run the Waikane Store; Jarod, the auto body guy who was selling his souped up car to a neighbor yesterday; my fellow walkers and talkers, and of course for Lilith.
Radhika's boyfriend played me "Tom's Diner" last night on his phone. We discovered that it was a Suzanne Vega song originally. The song ends abruptly with someone dumping a blob of milk into his/her half-full coffee cup because the waiter was distracted. "Like a Lilith walk," said Rad.
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