Death and life in the morning

The rooster was standing beside a dead chicken. As Lilith and I approached, the rooster walked away, but in a circle that arrived back at the dead chicken. 

 

Ola pulled his John Deere off the road to say "Hey aunty, how you?" Beside him was a younger worker, neat as a pin in his aloha shirt. Said he was exhausted. Long week at Valley of the Temples. Ola got off the cart to pet Lilith. She minded it not one bit. "How's the baby?" I asked. Ola puts out his hands. "Big as one nugget," he says. Just had their first ultrasound. "He . . . or she . . . da baby clapping, or looks like." New Year's baby. "I look, say, I made that!" At the guard shack, Uncle John says he'll get me a nice red cap. Already got one, I say. STL on it.

 

As we walked back, the rooster was still there, with his dead friend, companion, lover, fellow traveler. Another chicken had showed up. They stood at attention, curious and somehow wise.

Obituaries, alas

 

 

2,

If moral indignation, beautifully rendered, could set a bookstore into orbit, The Red Wheelbarrow in Paris still circulates this earth over 20 years later, after a reading by Alice Notley, who set her (nearly literal, ballistic) sights on W. and the neocons. "Was it too intense?" asked a friend, when I described that evening. Well, I still sit there some evenings, and watch deep space outside the window. Thank you for your constellations, Alice.

 

 

 

1.

I was hoping to visit Ken Quilantang when I got home, but he died last night. I can't say enough good things about him, as person, as writer, as devoted family man. In the early 2010s, he was going to take my documentary poetry class, which had an emphasis on personal and public histories. He wanted to write about his baby brother, Jonathan, who had died not long before. I was happy to have him in the class, but understood when he told me he was going to drop, because his grief was too fresh. He leaves his wife, Gail, his son, Jonathan (yes), and so many former teachers and students. Ken, you were a good man, and that matters. So much.

 

The blonde Polynesian dancer from Fredericksburg

Our blonde server in Fredericksburg grew up in Alabama and became a Polynesian dancer in New Jersey. She danced for 19 years; can’t since a drunk driver ran into her. Played with robert cazimero at Carnegie Hall, when his dancers got sick on their trip. Worked for Don Ho. “A bit handy for my taste,” she said. He’d get drunk, forgot words to his songs, read them off a TV. Bryant said he delivered the newspaper to Don Ho’s house as a kid. “He never tipped the paper boy.” Someone introduced her to Keali’i Reichel at a festival in Norfolk. I asked her where in Hawai’i she’d lived. But she’d never lived there. Lots of visits, though. When life gets stressful, she listens to Hawaiian music. I recommend Ledward Kaapana as we leave.

On the subway in DC.

She sat next to the window (though in the Washington Metro, that's hardly a feature), wearing make-up and Vans, her work shoes stuck in a bag at her feet. She was receiving texts in large print, too large for her neighbor to miss. One glance yielded the word "terrible," another the word "DOGE," another "they'll just replace us." I spotted the word "cruel." She gave me side-eye when I confessed I'd noticed that she was a federal worker in distress. I went back to staring out the window, when there was a rusty bridge to witness, and she to her device. As we approached my stop, she said, "I don't think anyone cares." I told her I'd been to protests in Hawai`i, and she thanked me, saying that they were too scared to demonstrate. I asked her what agency she's in, and she told me. Not one I'd expected to be vandalized. There were ironies there. After a day of tourism, I and my family got off the train, headed to our car. She stayed on, heading elsewhere in northern Virginia.

 

I don't know if I should write these any more, but my writer's gift for vague should help me now.