WHITE WORDS

Happy 29th Birthday!

2012-02-20T21:16:00.002-05:00

My father was the first person to wish me happy birthday.
(It is already 21st in Japan.)
Thank you for being my papa.

My New Coin Case!

2012-02-18T21:33:00.001-05:00

A birthday present from my death-metal hubby.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2012-02-14T21:31:00.002-05:00

Our Tradition: Chocolate Covered Strawberry!

Chicago School of Poetics

2012-02-09T19:12:00.002-05:00

I am going to take a poetry workshop at Chicago School of Poetics! I am really looking forward to meeting something exciting!

Charmi Keranen’s Poetry Art Exhibition

2012-02-05T13:14:00.007-05:00

My friend, Charmi, is a talented poet from the Midwest and she just published her first book, “The Afterlife is a Dry County” by Big Wonderful Press.

Currently I am organizing her poetry exhibition with domestic and international artists. We are booking an art gallery in South Bend, IN. The schedule is pending. However, we would like to have the exhibition by late this summer. It is going to be something contemporary, beautiful, and crazy!

So far, I have five excellent artists on board:

Ashley Biggs: Cover photographer at IU South Bend Literary Journal.
Alex Zaideman: Calendar photographer at the Indiana Dunes.
Brad Schmidt: Charcoal artist from Colombia College.
Chelle Costello: Artist, musician, and professor at IU South Bend.
Mitoka Yamada: Painter and performer in Tokyo, Japan.

If you introduce me to your artist friends who may be interested in joining this exhibition, please contact me. I am always happy to meet new artists.

Monbana Chocolate

2012-02-02T20:25:00.003-05:00

I have been sick. I eat only Monbana's chocolate from Paris.

Anti-Poetry -- Accepted!

2012-01-31T21:19:00.001-05:00

"My Father's Ivory Die" was accepted by Anti-Poetry.

***
MY FATHER’S IVORY DIE

#3: additional seizures after his brain surgery, #5: broken front teeth from diabetes… My father throws his ivory die on the floor. I say, “You may die within three years, you know?” He flaps yesterday’s newspaper because his tears blur out an article about a comet—Even after a star dies, it may linger as a white dwarf— I hear the clatter of dishes and silverware. I push his wheelchair. The die rolls into a corner of the dining room. Silken layers of stardust cover it. He scoops egg-drop soup into his mouth.

The Collegehood of the Traveling Wedding Card

2012-01-30T20:01:00.008-05:00

"Because we were so lucky to meet you at Nantan, we could create our lifetime...friendship!" Congratulations, Natsuko!

The greeting card was traveled through Chicago>> Osaka>> Nagoya>> and Higashi-ku, and then my college friends added comments in each city. Thank you very much for making it possible, Momo, Mizuho, & Amannochi! I miss you very much.

Portland Community College- 2/16

2012-01-29T21:52:00.003-05:00

At Portland Community College, Dr. Michael McDowell will teach my poem, "7:30PM, Rhapsody" on February 16, 2012. How amazing is that? In his course, he also teaches a poem by the respected (one of my favorite poets) Li-Young Lee!

Today, my death-metal hubby and I went to the China town in Chicago to celebrate Chinese New Year. We thought about Li-Young Lee because he lived in Chicago. The dragons and high school marching bands in the parade were so exciting. And we inhaled a cloud of burning crackers.

The restaurant, Dragon Court, was excellent. We ordered six different types of dim-sum and seafood noodles. We ordered extra to take home for lunch the next day, but ate everything before we left (and THEN got Garrett's popcorn on the way back).

Hotel Amerika is Out!

2012-01-28T10:32:00.002-05:00

Hotel Amerika is out. Enjoy reading "As of Late" with other wonderful poets!

AS OF LATE

1.
.....Some of the work confronting us
.....will not be completed during my presidency...

I told you during the speech,
I am five days late.

.....Some, like the elimination of nuclear weapons,
.....may not be completed in my lifetime…

I can no longer remember that I wanted to bear a child.

2.
My grandfather met a pregnant woman, summer 1945.

She held an empty bottle and a little red kimono
.....and she sat down by the gray wall.

He gave her water

.....and kept walking to the hill near Hiroshima
.....and then bullets rained

.....and the atomic bomb...

3.
He found the woman again
with a shred of the red cloth.

Her bowels
.....and placenta were spread

under the wall; in the ditch.

He did not find her unborn child but he smelled it.

4.
After rain and rain, the moon
threw down a little blue light.

.....How beautiful the spring of 1946 was;

dandelions and clovers covered the wall
.....and nobody could remember

there were the two corpses underneath it.

5.
While I am listening to the speech,

millions of cells are dividing
in bubbles of amniotic fluid;

a little heart pumps in my womb.

.....And you ask,
“Do we give it a Japanese or American name?”

I don’t know…
but I will stroke its forehead every night

humming an old lullaby.

Amanda's Wedding in South Bend

2012-01-18T21:16:00.001-05:00

with Amanda, January 15, 2012

Radio Tower-- Poem

2012-01-10T23:17:00.002-05:00

RADIO TOWER
after 3/11/2011 in Japan

“Run up to the hill,”
I repeated it from the radio tower.

Tsunami slithers through the seaweed garden.
A child was held in its mother’s arms on the bridge.

They were almost..........at the hill.

The microphone slipped from my hand.

Like a hundred other ambiguous bodies,
clay envelops my face.

..........Clovers grow. Their dewdrops

glitter under the stardust. Can I be promised
to return to the earth like everyone else,

like a beautiful mermaid, like

my grandmother?

Marina Veiler's Piano Recital

2012-01-05T22:23:00.003-05:00

Marina Veiler's Piano Recital
Sunday, January 8 at 3:00pm at New Music School in Downtown, Chicago.

It is a free event!

She was once my roommate and she survived living with me. It is rare.

JANUARY 1, 2012-- Prose Poem

2012-01-02T17:36:00.001-05:00

JANUARY 1, 2012

I explain to my father the random chance of his death. Just like an ivory die that he throws on the floor; #3 is for additional seizures after his brain surgery, #5 is for broken front teeth from diabetes… I said, “You may die within three years, you know?” He keeps flapping yesterday’s newspaper because his tears blur out an article about a comet—Even after a star dies, it may linger as a white dwarf— I hear the clatter of dishes and silverware. I push his wheelchair into the dining room. The die rolls into a corner of the room. Silken layers of stardust cover it. He scoops egg-drop soup into his mouth.

Before the Sunset--Reading

2011-12-23T22:10:00.006-05:00

2012 will be my fifth anniversary to be a published poet. I am very excited to join AWP for my first time and my poetry reading will be held in South Bend in May.

My first poems (Before the Sunset was one of them) were published in “Puerto Del Sol#44” in 2009. They were accepted by the former editor, Kathleene West, on Christmas day in 2007. I am thankful that she gave me my first chance in the publishing world.

Along with my poet friends, Charmi, Nancy, Amy, Ryan, Clayton, Alesandra, Jill, and ***drum sounds*** DDL, I am lucky to have this poetry community to help me poet forward.

Merry Christmas.

The Adventures of Tintin -- Moive

2011-12-23T01:13:00.002-05:00

I just watched "The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn." I would like to say, "Excellent."

Only One Line

2011-12-21T00:35:00.000-05:00

I showed an article to my mother in New York Magazine to point out my name.

I usually Skype her every weekend, but this was a Tuesday. When I texted her to ask for five minutes in Skype, she was busy practicing walking in her apartment with my father. I kept bugging her to get online because I have big news (which she interpreted as me being pregnant or something). In the tiny camera feed, I was proving that my name was actually next to the respected Swedish poet.

My mother seemed to be happy that my name was mentioned with those big names though she cannot read English and doesn’t have any idea what I am doing in the contemporary poetry world. She was excited to see my name with the words “New York” nonetheless.

In the magazine, the names listed are Will Hubbard (a best-selling poet in 2011), Naoko Fujimoto (no book publication), Tomas Tranströmer (Nobel laureate), and Walt Whitman (a legendary poet). In the tiny screen, my mother pointed out their credentials and said, “You have only one line. You need to work on your publications.” Actually, she was seeing a credential of Tranströmer. It says, “Nobel laureate.” And she continued, “There is an arrow toward under…so your next step will be Tomas Tranströmer?”

Then I thought: When I become 80 years-old and am still a poet, if I then receive a Nobel price— for example— would I be really happy? Of course I would be honored, because my art work would be a staple of the 21st century. However, I couldn’t say, “Do you remember the article in New York Magazine?” and laugh about it with my parents. They would already be dead. I may feel vacant with such an expensive prize. There are no parents or current close friends to take to luxurious spas in Japan. I may not be able to cerebrate from the bottom of my heart without them.

Perhaps I may try to spend all the money before I die within five years or so because I would not want ugly inheritance arguments between my children, extend family, and extended-extended family. There are always ways to spend money, like buying a Swarovski crystal toilet recently produced in a Japanese toilet company.

I guess I just like to ramble on about another “IF” story. In the end, I am thrilled that my name is printed in a national magazine, Naoko Fujimoto— on the way to being a poet like the names surrounding mine.

Welcome to My 2010

2011-12-15T23:26:00.005-05:00

I feel like 2010 finally started. The sun rises, Christmas ornaments shine, and I have been happy…so happy. Thank you, thank you very much (I am waving at you).

It took eleven months, maybe more than that to get where I thought I would have started here. In the end of September during my sister’s wedding, I wanted to divorce— my sick father did not want me to go back to America, my grandmother asked me to take a sleeping pill to calm down— because of my death metal-hubby’s drinking issues and the time it took to find a good job. On top of that, in early October, my company asked me to find a new job, and there were no publications yet this year. I can be on and on about my miserable months.

And then one manager asked me to be her assistant (in a way) in the middle of November. I have been working ok –things are so much better there—so I saved my job. I can pay my rent. Before then, my death-metal hubby cut his hair and has been working so hard as a researcher. His drinking issues have dramatically improved. And then my poems were accepted in December. Step by step everything’s been falling into place, improving beyond that even, and now I can be on and on about recent happy days.

I was drowning, but somebody and something pulled me out from the water— just like my friends, family, writers, and hubby dragged a seine— here I am. I was pulled to the surface. The bright, sunny surface. I wear a bikini. I hope I don’t get sunburn.

New York Magazine -- Livelihoods of the Poets

2011-12-14T20:02:00.003-05:00

Rachel Friedman wrote an article, "Livelihoods of the Poets," in New York Magazine.

My name was mentioned in the article! Thank you!

***

Tomas Tranströmer is having a good two weeks: On December 10, the 80-year-old Swedish poet was officially given the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature in Oslo, and on December 19, Farrar, Straus and Giroux will publish a new edition of his verse. To get to this moment, he triumphed o’er what are perhaps the longest economic odds in the arts.

THE WASTELAND
Estimated poetry M.F.A.’s awarded, according to M.F.A.-world blogger Seth Abramson, in …
2001: 700
2006: 1,000
2011: 1,400
Approximate number of jobs available to teach M.F.A. programs: 750

Est. number of poems considered by editors of The Best American Poetry yearly anthology: 20,000
Number selected: 75

The Bling
Representative Paychecks

$460 for a 36-line poem: The New Yorker
$75 a poem: The Paris Review
$25 a page: Plough-shares
$10 a line: Poetry Magazine

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED DOESN’T PAY FOR GROCERIES
Second job of noted poets.

Will Hubbard
Credentials: Wrote Cursivism, published by Ugly Duckling Presse.
Second Job: Manages the noise-pop duo Sleigh Bells.

Naoko Fujimoto
Credentials: Published in Hotel Amerika, Potomac Review, Passages North, and New Madrid.
Second Job:Purchasing associate at a Japanese tool company.

Tomas Tranströmer
Credentials: Nobel laureate.
Second Job: Psychologist for juvenile delinquents (now retired).

Walt Whitman
Credentials: Wrote one of the best poems in the history of civilization.
Second Job: Government clerk.

WIDELY KNOWN IN NARROW CIRCLES
Best-selling poetry books of 2011

Horoscopes for the Dead / Billy Collins
Copies sold: 18,406
*Author’s est. earnings: $44, 177

Leavings / Wendell Berry
Copies sold: 2, 928
*Author’s est. earnings: $4,377

Come, Thief / Jane Hirshfield
Copies sold: 2,250
*Author’s est. earnings: $5,625

*Assumes a 10 percent royalty rate.

282,000 Copies of Tim Tebow’s autobiography, Through My Eyes, sold since its May release.

WINNING THE NOBEL LOTTERY
Approximate number of books sold by Tranströmer in America in the ten years before he won the Nobel: 12,300.
Number of copies of Tranströmer books that have been scheduled for printing since he won the prize: at least 50,000.
Monetary reward for winning Nobel Prize: $1,480,000

Natural Bridge -- Accepted!

2011-12-13T22:13:00.004-05:00

Natural Bridge is accepted two poems! Yes!

***
REQUIEM FROM AN OFFICE 7,000 MILES AWAY
after Japan, 3/11/2011

I type numbers and sit in a black
chair for eight hours. Glass cloth
covers my eyes. Cold
sand fills my bones. A graveyard

on the hill is burning.

After the earthquake, a fisherman
runs to the fire. He carries
a clarinet and yells to me,

What else do you want?

My eyelids are sealed like wax stamps.
A tsunami pushes the flaming tombstones and boats.

Under the white moon, the fisherman
plays a clarinet concerto. He vibrates
the reed. In the ocean breeze, he inhales
human dust. I open

my eyes. I want

lights

and then more lights.

***
FOREIGN / GREY

Because I’m from Fukushima, I say, I’m not / radioactive, and eat / seaweed salad from a bowl. You / hold my hands as we share these long / silences. Because / I’m a Buddhist, I recite, Namu-amida-butsu, at noon / over lunch, and very late at night. But I don’t pray for the Japanese. I pray / for myself because I crave / a word. I want it to avalanche into my eyes / like a kaleidoscope for the dead, but the sky / glares as usual because I’m so / often lost in this foreign / grey. I take my two fingers and push / them into my breasts. I say, If I / die with cancer, for example? You rub / my left breast. My brown / nipples are so cold at 2:30 A.M.

***Note
Namu-amida-butsu is a phrase from Buddhist prayer.

ETERNAL SILVER-- Prose Poem

2011-12-08T22:42:00.000-05:00

ETERNAL SILVER
after Japan, 3/11/2011

A woman lies with diapers full of sea water. Her legs remind me of a giant rubber band I shot in math class, summer 1993. I shot it at you, a love note landing on your thigh. I wanted for you to return it so my palm could feel your fingers like drops of eternal silver. That day spiderworts lined the streets in puddles going home. Your eye sockets were full of mud. “I cannot see my future,” you said as you plucked the rubber band. I stand up shouting, “Are you alright?” There is a baby underneath her. I smell my warm sweat.

AMPERSAND -- Prose Poem

2011-12-06T23:07:00.002-05:00

AMPERSAND

I play Nazareth’s tango while you flap my yellow dress & hang it on the blue balcony. Your hands are dry like an entangled fish when its scales fall away after an ebb tide. You collect fish bones & line them up on a silver plate like a glockenspiel. A white fish is steamed in the red pot. I like to eat it with pepper & yuzu-citrus. Raindrops beat on the kitchen windows & insensible pavement. Here in the Midwest, I don’t smell rain like that. You look in the mirror at a lump in your breast & I live in rain years.

Spillway Magazine

2011-11-26T13:00:00.003-05:00

Spillway is out. On Page 51, there is my poem, AND page 52...(drum sounds)...Norman Dubie!!!

Poetry Reading on 11/20/2011

2011-11-22T20:41:00.002-05:00

Thank you for posting pictures, Charmi.
DDL, me, Charmi,
right front featured poet Alessandra Simmons

Weekend in South Bend

2011-11-21T21:44:00.002-05:00

I am thankful for the people I spent time with last weekend. I know that it is cheesy to suddenly be a thankful person before Thanksgiving, but I would just like to say 'thank you' to Charmi and her husband who welcomed me into their house and fed me very well. It was my very first experience sleeping with their daughter's big turtles. They watched me until I felt sleep. Then I had a wonderful breakfast with POETS! I am really looking forward to seeing Amy & Ryan's own online poetry magazine. I can clearly see that they are going to be great editors. And of course, thank you to DDL, who read a poem with me and was always a great mentor for my poetic experiences. The reading at the Fiddler's Hearth was full of energy. Clayton was a great producer and he gave me an opportunity to read again about 30 poems in May, 2012. I loved the performance of the featured reader, Alessandra Simmons. I hope I can meet her again sometime!

I was really thankful that my hubby's mother was waiting for me with dinner! I was pretty hungry after the poetry reading and the long driving back home.

Poetry Reading at Fiddler's Hearth

2011-11-17T22:38:00.003-05:00

I am going to read poems at Fiddler's Hearth in South Bend, IN on 11/20.
Thank you very much for the opportunity, Clayton & Charmi.

2:30 Brandi David
2:35 Judith Hizer
2:40 Becky Pelky
2:45 Chris Williams
2:50 Britanny Herrada
2:55 Tamara Nicholl-Smith

3:00 BREAK

3:05 McKenzie Tozan
3:10 Jeff Tatay
3:15 Jack Daly
3:20 Margaret Chapman
3:25 Nicole Koroch
3:30 Naoko Fujimoto

3:40 Featured Reader Alessandra Simmons
***Alessandra Simmons is from Los Angeles. She’s currently the editor of Indiana Review.

ART+PHOTO

2011-11-04T23:16:00.001-04:00

A Photo from Jill Alexander Essbaum

2011-10-29T15:23:00.004-04:00

I am taking an online class. The instructor is Jill Alexander Essbaum. The photo was taken by her.

New Madrid--Accepted!

2011-10-28T22:04:00.017-04:00

New Madrid: A Journal of Contemporary Literature is accepted two poems.

***

PEEL

My grandfather hides in a closet.

“I’m not afraid of dying in this war,”

he screams. Bullets

blotted out the sky

in 1945. Flower-printed

futon mattresses caught fire. Ash

stuck in my grandfather’s eyes. Like rotten

fruit, only the skin held a human

shape. His shoes were scorched.

Alzheimer’s doesn’t destroy war memories.

“Do you want to eat a tangerine?” I asked.

He crouches in the closet,

stroking his dried toes. I sit next to him. Cicadas

recite the Buddhist sutra. I trace

the tangerine’s peel and think of your

smooth body. My nails

pierce skin. Juice rolls

down between my fingers.

I lick

their tips next to the shaking old man.

***

IN LAWRENCEVILLE; HONEYMOON

Time and again; time..... and again; I sit

.....and stay in my Japanese body; no

honeymoon: no

dining table: eight months & three

thousand dollars to become an Asian

or Pacific Islander

immigrant; it’s pending: I can do

nothing: I am

nothing until it clears; I can’t hire you—

secretaries treat me like an illegal

alien.....and warn my red

passport will expire soon; I smack

a laundry basket into a chair.....so I feel

accomplished in this country; in Lawrenceville,

Illinois: two

blocks down from a Catholic church: we rent

an apartment and I look at the moon

over the wild stems.

***

Note: (.....) means space.

FOREIGN / GREY-- Prose-ish Poem

2011-10-27T00:29:00.004-04:00

FOREIGN / GREY

Because I’m from Fukushima, I say, I’m not / radioactive poison, and eat green / seaweed salad from a bowl. You / hold my hands as we share these long / silences together. Because / I’m a Buddhist, I recite, Namu-amida-butsu, at noon / over lunch, and very late at night after a long / day’s work. But I don’t pray for the Japanese. I pray / for myself because I crave / a word. I want it to avalanche into my eyes / like a kaleidoscope for the dead, but the sky / darkens as usual because I’m so / often lost in this foreign / grey. I take my two fingers and push / them into my breasts. I say, If I / die with cancer, for example? You rub / my left breast. My brown / nipples are so cold at 2:30 A.M.

***Note
Namu-amida-butsu is a phrase from Buddhist prayer.

2011-10-16T22:36:00.005-04:00

>>Click, It is time for cheer myself!

REQUIEM FROM AN OFFICE

2011-10-12T23:38:00.002-04:00

REQUIEM FROM AN OFFICE
..........after Japan, 3/11/2011

I type numbers for thirteen
dollars an hour and sit in a black
chair for eight hours. Glass
cloth covers my eyes. Cold

sand fills my bones. A graveyard

on the hill is burning.
After the earthquake, a fisherman
runs to the fire. He carries
a clarinet and yells to me,

What else do you want?

I stab
the calculator with scissors.
They slice my skin. Veins
overflow. White ashes fall on the granite

floor. I smell of my singed eyelids. A tsunami

pushes the flaming tombstones and boats.

Under the crescent moon, the fisherman
plays a clarinet concerto. He vibrates
his reed. In the ocean breeze, he inhales
human dust. I open

my eyes. I want

lights

and then more lights.

SEVENTEEN BLUE

2011-10-08T19:24:00.010-04:00

I am taking Jill's online poetry workshop. For the first week, we discussed about Prompts & Ideas. I edited my poems with their posts.

***
SEVENTEEN BLUE

1.
The cranes are crowded in my mail box.

Seventeen blue
papers lay scattered on the floor. Buddha
folds one more for my shiawase.

He whispers, What did you expect?

My mother rings

a bell from her wheelchair. I change
her diaper.

2.
A sudden noise
comes from Buddha’s stomach. He brings

me an apron. I open

the refrigerator and reheat
steamed rice and smoked mackerel.

From the white plates,
he feeds my mother and the origami

birds...........I wring

their necks.

***
My favorite prompts from the Online Workshop:

#1) Backwards
Like Sarah’s idea, I like to flip my poems as well. And then I kill my favorite unnecessary words and reorganize stanzas & line breaks.

#2) Ekphrastic
Like Tanya’s idea, I also like writing about art/paint. My obsession is Modigliani. I would definitely have a date with him.

#3) Steal attractive words from books
I also like stealing vocabulary from many authors.

I have borrowed and adapted words from Christine Garren, Franz Wright, James Wright, Louise Gluck, Jack Gilber, and others (my favorite poets are very similar to Charmi’s). In addition, I love to randomly open Botanical Guidebooks and use plant names in my poem.

#4) Combine my old poems
When my poem is not strong enough, I put a couple of my old poems together. After I choose the poems, I change narrative voices, rearrange lines into different stanzas, and try to create a seamless patchwork.

#5) Translate articles from Japanese into English
I adapt the strongest phrases into my poems. However, I should be careful that the poem is not just a translated article. I try not to forget adding imagination and poetic inspiration.

Online Poetry Workshop with Jill Alexander Essbaum

2011-09-10T12:26:00.002-04:00

I am going to take an online poetry workshop by Barrelhouse with Charmi!

Poem: ORIGAMI CRANE

2011-09-06T21:41:00.001-04:00

ORIGAMI CRANE

1.
You say I’m a police officer,
what do you expect?

2.
Our six-year-old son folds
a blue paper. He wants to bring
you shiawase. Seventeen

cranes lay scattered on the table.

3.
You patrol the Fukushima
nuclear plant and breath in

and out the late summer air…

4.
A sudden noise comes from our son’s
stomach. I turn on the kitchen
light and open the refrigerator. He

brings me an apron.

Steamed rice & smoked
mackerel are on the table.

Our son sits on your chair and feeds an origami crane.

5.
The cranes are crowded
in your mail box. You

wring the birds’ necks and tear them to pieces.

*Note
Shiawase means happiness in Japanese.
100 Origami Cranes are a symbol of happiness & peace.

2011-09-04T11:51:00.000-04:00

From my hubby with his first paycheck

Spillway

2011-08-21T21:22:00.003-04:00

"The First Night" was accepted by Spillway.
The editor is Susan Terris.

***
THE FIRST NIGHT
after the tsunami on 3/11/2011

1.
A little yellow shoe drifted away. I
clasped my hands around a tree
trunk & smelled the endless

water desert.

2.
When I was eight years old, I squatted
down in a futon-closet & waited
for my mother. My aunt opened
the closet with wheat bread

& eight boiled eggs.

3.
Dear Mother,
Did you escape the land of sudden

death?

4.
I waved my hands to the silver
whistles of a helicopter in the morning
sky. It dropped a rope like a spider

thread three miles away from my tree.

Yes!

2011-08-17T21:24:00.004-04:00

Today is the happiest day in my life! Congratulations for my death-metal hubby.

Surprised Gift from Indiana

2011-08-14T19:03:00.001-04:00

Necklace made by a.g.

Hybrid of Three Previous Poems

2011-08-12T22:57:00.003-04:00

I conbined "Tokyo Water," "Green Wall," & "Fukushima Spring" and created a new poem. Thank you for the idea, Charmi & DDL.

***
TOKYO WATER
after fukushima

1.
Sprouts absorb droplets. Tadpoles
plop their black tails. I felt

a kick in my womb.

2.
No nuclear plants;
we want to birth healthy children…

Japanese women march behind a wall of camphor trees.

3.
You come back with bleach. I hate
the lemon fragrance.

God doesn’t help me…

The smell of laundry detergent blows from a vent.

4.
The breeze & rain cause no harm,
But children must drink bottled water,

the Japanese meteorologist said. No

water is left in the supermarkets.

5.
I break egg
shells and cook a pea omelet. Your finger

slowly drags

down my spine.
I smell the bleach on it,.....throw

the omelet at the floor.

The green peas roll between us.

6.
The kitchen light is turned off. Beaded

Tokyo water trickles into the drain.

South Bend

2011-08-07T20:35:00.001-04:00

Late Summer Reading List

A POEM FOR THE JAPANESE EARTHQUAKE

2011-07-31T21:24:00.004-04:00

MAYUMI
After the tohoku earthquake & tsunami

1.
Don’t leave my hand.
My daughter’s palms were soft.

The black houses crushed
a local library and.....us.

2.
Our home is only a broken gate.
I recite Mayumi in front of it.

3.
Her body roams the ocean.
It deserves the sparkling white

bubbles,.....and slowly disappears.

4.
Tonight’s full moon is the brightest in a year.

Happy birthday…
She would be sixteen.

***
The first draft on 3/22/2011.
MAYUMI

1.
Don’t leave my hand.
I look into my daughter’s eyes.

The black wave of houses
sweeps into my ribs; cold & heavy…

.....Two men drag me from the stream.

2.
Home is gone
leaving only a broken gate.

The concrete
smashes her blue
bicycle. I wait

for her sitting on the rubble
and recite Mayumi.....like the Buddhist prayer.

3.
A fence covered with tiny
notes about victims
leads to the morgue.

Female, a yellow apron with the crescent and three stars…

She was not in the casket.

4.
Her body
roams the ocean current. Tonight’s full

moon is the brightest in a year. Her body
deserves the sea water;
the sparking white bubbles.

Like an old story of a mermaid,
her body slowly
.....disappears from the earth.

Poem after the Japanese Nuclear Disaster

2011-07-26T22:23:00.004-04:00

FUKISHIMA SPRING

I want to promise you spring…
Little white petals, a sweet

smelling daphne, blue-purple
morning dew drops on young leaves…

Sprouts grow into piano phrase notes.
Crocuses bloom in the garden. Cherry

blossoms are pink-inkblots
on a natane-rainy

day. I will walk in the rain
without an umbrella

and take you to your Japanese home.

Sleet turns to rain on my cheek. I felt
a kick in my womb.

Note: Natane (na-ta-nay)-rainy day is a rainy day in spring.

***
The second draft was...

FUKISHIMA SPRING

I want to eat a daikon-
radish with a bowl of steamed
rice. Chips in plastic bags,

tuna cans, and add water
to instant food, I eat them on a thin
mattress on the cold floor of the shelter.

Home is calling me.

Sprouts grow into piano phrase notes;
tulips bloom in the garden. Cherry
blossoms are pink inkblots
on a natane-rainy

day. I want to walk in the rain
without an umbrella.

I am sorry—I cannot promise you spring.
I hold my hands on my womb

White little petals, a sweet

smelling daphne, blue-purple
morning dew drops on young leaves…

I sing an old Japanese spring song.

Sleet turns to rain on my cheek.

***
The very first draft was on 4/18/2011.

FUKISHIMA SPRING

I want to eat a daikon-
radish with a bowl of steamed
rice. Chips in plastic bags,

tuna cans, and add water
to instant food, I eat them on a thin
mattress on the cold floor of the shelter.

Home is calling me. Tulips

bloom in the garden. Cherry
blossoms are inkblot-pink
on a natane-rainy

day. I want to walk in the rain
without my yellow umbrella;

white little petals, a sweet

smelling daphne, blue-purple
morning dew drops on young leaves…

I sing an old Japanese
spring song to my unborn child.
I am sorry—I cannot promise you spring.

I close my eyes.

A child wears a hat. Sprouts
grow like a piano

phrase note. I hold
my hands. I keep singing

the song. I feel

sleet on my cheeks.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE

2011-07-24T17:23:00.005-04:00

TOKYO WATER

The meteorologist said,

the breeze & rain cause no harm,
but children must drink bottled water.

No water is left in the supermarkets.

An early summer gust blows from Fukushima

and rain clouds cover Tokyo…

A water strider
splashes in a puddle. The spinach
field absorbs it. The leaves
sparkle with the droplets. Tadpoles

plop with their black tails. I open

a yellow umbrella and walk in the city.

***
The first draft was on 4/5/2011.
TOKYO WATER

Tokyo sakura: cherry
blossoms; from the train
windows, I see Japanese
pink petals: the petals are blown
by the spring breeze: the nuclear
breeze ripples puddles; the meteorologist
said, the breeze; no harm, but children
should drink bottled water: no water
left in the supermarkets; I import
unpopular Canadian water;
again, I stayed overnight thinking about
water; a water strider wants to splash
the rain water; rain boots & rain coat & rainbow
umbrella; must wear sleek
to protect your body from the radiation; again
the meteorologist said, the soil absorbs
water; spinach glows with dew
drops in the morning.

The Phantom of the Opera

2011-07-23T14:33:00.006-04:00

I finally feel like I’m coming back to the world—I was depressed as hell since last March—but now I am buzzing like a young girl when crushes on her teacher. I have been watching The Phantom of the Opera—my favorite musical since I was 12 years old—and I did not know that my death metal hubby accidentally had the movie from his former roommate and had it stored away for a long time.

Every night I giggle and dream about the phantom even though I have rough days at work—I have to arrange a shipment to Japan for two huge dog houses bigger than my parents’ bedroom, and I do not know why my company suddenly deals with dog houses. I thought that we sold tools, machines, and of course, wrenches. My concern is what kind of Japanese household can keep the two gigantic dog houses in their tiny apartment. They can live in the dog houses as their mobile summer home.

With those odd jobs for a week, I still have the angel of music waiting for me when I come back home. I simply set up the movie—finally I learned how to use the player—I sing “Think of Me” in both English and Japanese, and I gaze at the details of the phantom’s expression with a pillow gripped in my arms.

“Think of Me” is such a beautiful phrase. I would like to say it one time in my lifetime. But I do not know that I have the courage to say it to my phantom. As an excuse to be a poet, I can dream of him in my mind, can’t I? I think of him, but I won’t demand of him, “Think of me”. Maybe whisper it before I go to bed.

When I was young, I was happy that Christina ended up with Raul, but my thoughts have changed over the years. I understand that she kisses the phantom because he is her respected music master and she deeply sympathies with his feelings of loneliness. But she kisses twice! It is not just one casual farewell kiss, they kiss to feel their lips in front of Raul. She definitely thinks of the phantom until she dies after her marriage with Raul.

This obsession will keep me going until the dog houses will be delivered to the apartment in Japan and the two dogs—maybe human—start living in them. I pick up the phone call from the delivery service. It was a delivery confirmation and I asked his name—Raul.

Nadeshiko Japan

2011-07-19T21:17:00.003-04:00

"Never Give Up" that I learned from "Nadeshiko" Japan. Thank you very much for teaching me. My spirit was still resonating after the game!

>>Click To:
FIFA Women's World Cup

BUSINESS BOULEVARD

2011-07-16T00:44:00.000-04:00

So, I am working at a machine tool company, and the company sells tool holders, collets, and of course my favorite wrenches, high-tech German and Japanese live tools, and some French shrink-fit units. In short, they sell tools made of steel. People can make anything with the tools from artificial bones to arms for terrorists.

I am still a beginner in the machinery business; however, I like some aspects of my work. For example: I like the pronunciation of tools such as “collet.” I think that it is a brilliantly beautiful word in an oil-stained warehouse world. But I always hesitate to touch it because it is very oily. But I love the sound of “collet”, like yellow rain drops in the French countryside. But to tell the truth, collets are just like miniature version of C3PO from Star Wars.

I call many venders everyday and purchase various things that I have never thought of before. Actually, it is amusing to communicate with manufacturers from many states. Today, I was buying black oxide from Florida (in liquid form), and the men asked for my company’s address.

“Blue Bird? How interesting a street name that is.”

At first, I did not understand why the men talked about a blue bird. In my mind, Big Bird from Sesame Street was dancing with the black oxide. And I thought about avian flu; that is why I cannot fit into the business world, maybe I am just ADHD. “Concentrate, Naoko!” I could not be distracted by my daydreams because I was using the company’s credit card.

I am sometimes amazed at how much money I spend every day. I work in the purchasing department, so my job is to spend wisely, not wasting so much as a penny. I tried to concentrate so I can communicate with the men from Florida.

“Ba-ru Bard?” I asked with my Japanese accent.
“How do you spell the street name exactly?” The man was totally confused.

I sounded the word out slowly, but my pronunciation was like “B-u-l-b-e-ar-d-e.”
It took seven minutes to make him to understand “Boulevard.”

I would like to admit that it is not my language problem. Most of the time, I am fine communicating with people on the phone—banks, insurance companies, hospitals, etc…people understand me well. And I realized that communication is not only my problem. The problem is that my scatterbrain characteristics and habit of talking way too fast force me to not appropriately pronounce words in English and Japanese.

I can write words without thinking, therefore ignoring Japanese polite grammar. I was typing an email in Japanese twenty minutes after five o’clock on Friday.

“The item is 7,400 Yen (~$93), thank you very much for your generous discount.”

Immediately after I sent the email, my boss called me. The cost was actually $7,400. No company would give me such a generous discount. Amazingly, I am surviving in this industry somewhere on the boulevard.

Writing Seed

2011-07-14T20:53:00.003-04:00

Thank you very much my writer's friends who emailed and commented about my last post. I really needed their cheers and opinions.

Writers are difficult to fit into this horribly capitalized society--amazingly I am surviving in a business world selling wrenches after wrenches-- and in the end, they decide to be isolated from the community because they believe their identities to be writers.

This life crisis will be a part of my experience, and I will suddenly have a moment that tells me I must write. Keep my head up and once I get an opportunity to publish, I will fire that energy into the right direction. Right now, what I can do is keep writing and educating myself.

Suddenly, I felt my writing was as successful at my dating. I had a handful of relationships when I was in college; however, once I became 24 years old, all the boys were running away from me no matter what I wore. Even though I showed my naturally tanned armpits. I read a lot of girly magazines to learn how to attract men that did not include that. I wanted to have attention. I wanted to be loved!

Then I understood that I needed to be a single for a bit. Actually, the best years I had were when I was single--I had my attic to write poems, friends to drink with, male friends who love chick flicks... After I enjoyed being single, I was finally ready to marry my death-metal hubby (who did not like chick flicks) who was actually just a friend at first. If I did not have the silly single life, I might not have been ready for marriage. Well, after my happily-ever-after, there is another aspect to be challenged.

Despite my wanting to live out my life elsewhere, I may end up living in Japan. However, I will always have a writer's spirit within me. The spirit is like a seed, which was planted when I was born. I just patiently have to wait until it blooms something like a yellow flower... or a venus fly trap.

Freedom To Be Miserable No Matter Where I Am

2011-07-13T20:15:00.003-04:00

My freedom is slowly being invaded by an anomalous energy--commitment--I cannot promise to behave like people expect me to--devoted daughter, lovely wife, and hard worker. I am thankful for my seriousness though, for I am dealing with my horribly sick father, crying & depressed mother, unemployed death-metal hubby, and everything else that I think of whenever I should be relaxing, or sleeping, or driving, or defecating.

I am not the type of girl who loves commitment; therefore, I escaped and ran away from Japanese society when I was sixteen years old. I moved away as far as possible. I love being alone and working toward my goal of being an aggressive artist, being free to explore contemporary artistic concepts.

Recently, I am really afraid of how I cannot balance freedom and commitment. There is no longer freedom for me. I can create time for art, but sadly art cannot be my number one priority. Paying rent for my apartment, organic peaches, arguing death-metal hubby, and placating depressive parents are competing with my creative energy.

I know that I should not act like a selfish isolationist, but at the same time, I cannot ignore them. I want to be a proud daughter, kind wife, and responsible person.

Amazingly, I start thinking of going back to Japan to support my parents. When I think about that, my heart beat doubles. With my parents in Japan, I am afraid of losing my writing ability because I will have no time for art and no energy for things outside working, paying rent, taking care of my parents, and teaching my death-metal hubby to be a "デース　メタル　ハビー". At the same time, I understand that if I am a real writer, I can write under any circumstances, no matter where I am.

Rowboat: Poetry in Translation

2011-07-10T11:03:00.004-04:00

Matthew Thorburn,the author of Disappears in the Rain, informed me about a new magazine called Rowboat. The magazine is a collection of poems translated from other languages into English. In Poetry Daily, his review of the magazine is available.

As most people know, Japanese is my native language. Maybe it is a good chance to study translation (in poetry). Once I translated some Japanese poems from the 1980's; however, I would like to translate ancient Japanese poetry (different like English and ye olde English).

I am stuck in modern creativity, so I should learn something from history, my roots. My Japanese DNA may give me a click to the next level of creativity.

May I be a Poet?

2011-07-09T22:48:00.003-04:00

I did not brush my teeth today. I slept fourteen hours and cried a little bit for no reason. I do not like Saturdays. I do not like Mondays nor Wednesdays neither. My non-favorite days include Thursday, Sunday, and Tuesday. And please do not forget about Friday.

I woke up at 7:00am today and looked for something to do. I needed to stimulate my brain with something creative; otherwise, I am really dying. I typed "Saturday morning job," "class," "workshop," and "poetry" into Google. I used to love a quiet Saturday morning. I used to love any kind of morning... now every morning, I scream the 'f' word in my car on the way to work.

My earthquake poetry project is still in plastic folders. They are slightly dusty. The first words still remain on the pages and are waiting to be killed and reformed. I want to be ready for fall submission packages, but I am not confident that will happen.

I fell in love with writing poetry very easily. It was more suitable for me than writing fiction or nonfiction, or even playing the piano. I could imagine every word and line on one page. I could not be a pianist, but I thought that I can be a poet.

If I give up writing now, I will not have anything to be proud of. Some way, I need to keep writing. Seriously, I am desperate to be a poet.

2011-07-09T11:31:00.001-04:00

Weekend Update

2011-07-03T11:41:00.006-04:00

Ivan II's Three Year-Old Birthday

Hanging Flowers from a flower market in Mundelein, IL.

Morning Glory is waking up!

Fish from Lake Michigan. Caught by my death metal hubby.

His Proud Taco Salad

2011-07-02T21:44:00.002-04:00

THE FIRST NIGHT
After the tsunami on 3/11/2011

1.
A yellow little shoe drifted away. I
clasped my hands around the tree
trunk & smelled of the endless

.....water desert.

2.
I squatted down in a futon-closet & waited
for my mother in the summer, 1993.
My aunt opened the closet with wheat bread

.....& eight boiled eggs.

3.
I waved my hands to the silver
whistles of a helicopter in the morning
sky. It dropped a rope like a spider

.....thread three miles away from my tree.

4.
Dear Mother,
Did you escape the land of sudden

.....death?

***
The first draft on March 20, 2011.
THE FIRST NIGHT

I clasped my hands around the trunk;
smells of dark

sea water and dirt; no lights, no
neighbors. My husband’s cold
hand rubbed my cheeks.

When the tsunami
covered the village, the neighbors
drove up the hill; a long
snaking trail of taillights to the safe place.

Let’s leave our car…
and then the tsunami dragged
and trundled the cars.....like tumble

weeds in an endless water desert. I closed
my eyes. The seat-belt bit my lungs.

.....Sudden stop; a branch
caught our car. We climbed up the tree.
Several cluttered waves washed away the car.

In the morning, we saw a police
car on the intact bridge. Our voice
disappeared into the shining

black sea water. I saw
a girl’s shoe drifting away from us.

I want to live.
My husband started
waving his scarf into the gray sky.
.....A helicopter appeared. It dropped

a rope like a spider thread.

2011-06-11T22:20:00.002-04:00

Kill the words! Kill the title! I am working on editing my earthquake poetry series.

***
GREEN WALL

The smell of laundry
detergent blows from a vent.

You come back with toilet

bowl cleaner. I hate
the lemon fragrance.

..........God doesn’t help me,

I repeat & turn on the television.

..........No nuclear plants;
..........we want to birth healthy children.

Japanese school girls
march behind

a wall of camphor trees.

..........Where are the snow peas?

you ask in the kitchen. I break

egg shells and cook
a pea omelet for you. Your

finger slowly drags

down

my spine. I smell
the bleach on it, throw

the omelet at your feet. The green

peas roll between us.

***
The First Draft: 4/30/2011
SNOW PEA

Please help me God,
I repeat under the crescent
moon. It gleams on a snow

pea field. The purple
petals bobble in the wind. The smell

of laundry detergent
blows from a vent. I trace
a lozenge on my thigh. Seventeen

minutes before May, you open
the door with toilet bowl cleaner. I hate
the lemon fragrance. The TV camera

shows camphor trees. Japanese school
girls march with microphones. We don’t

need the nuclear plants. We want
healthy children. I break

egg shells and cook a pea
omelet. You boil water for the chicken
flavored noodles. In the kitchen, your

finger slowly moves

down my spine.

2011-06-01T20:36:00.003-04:00

Unshod Quills is out...

Welcome to Our Future Smart Home!

2011-05-30T11:31:00.008-04:00

Smart Home: Green + Wired

2011-05-19T21:16:00.011-04:00

I really must have a piano, I said when I visited Heavenly Pianos

2011-05-18T21:16:00.002-04:00

The Adventure of Tintin will be out on December 23, 2011!!

2011-05-17T20:39:00.003-04:00

"Forks Over Knives;" the movie is De-Supersize Me. Now in the theater. The website shows where you can watch it.

2011-05-14T21:15:00.002-04:00

"Tokyo Summer, 1993" and "Mother's Lips" are accepted by Unshod Quills. Dena Rash Guzman from H.A.L Publishing is currently editing the first issue.

***
TOKYO SUMMER, 1993
.....for y.h.

There is a bathtub in the parking lot.

I’m falling in love with an abstract
painting, you tell me. Your body

hisses in an August rain. We collect
dead cicadas in the bathtub

and sketch them for hours......This is a Tokyo
summer, 1993. A dandelion’s white seed softly

lands on the balcony. The cat
slashes open the window screen.

There is your head hanging by a curtain rod.

I don’t know how to live,
your mouth opens wide.

Dark and beaded rain
falls into the bathtub. I want to chop

off the cat’s legs and hollow
out its eyes. I’m craving

your warm body. Cicadas sing their silver song.

2011-05-13T22:37:00.003-04:00

I love killing words.

***
MOTHER’S LIPS
.....after the tsunami in Japan

You have no father,
my mother said & wiped
my neck with a long
towel; I smelled the lavender
soap: bubbles on her
cheeks: the outline of her
lipstick: dark
purple around her lips;
they were unlike mine; I wanted
hers; I hated the garden
scent; no
lavenders please, I said;
just muddy
bodies
on blue vinyl sheets
at the flower
shop; sand & pebbles filled
my mother’s mouth; I bit
my lip: tasted blood.

***
The first draft on March 31.

MOTHER’S LIPS

When I was twelve, my grandfather took
me to a flower market. There were no
flowers, but dead bodies caked in mud
on blue vinyl sheets. I cleaned
my mother’s face with my handkerchief.

Every night, my mother boiled water
with a red kettle. A towel soaked
in the scalding basin. She wiped my neck,
cheeks, and behind my ears. She told me,
I am sorry you never knew your father.

After my bath, I sat in front of the mirror.
I touched my mouth, which is unlike
my mother’s. I grabbed her red lipstick. She
spanked my hand when she found the stained
pillow cases on the futon mattress.

My grandfather stroked my mother’s shoulders.
It was very cold and scary. Sleep peacefully...
He recited a Buddhist prayer. I found
the lipstick in her pocket. With my finger, I drew it on her lips.

2011-05-03T20:49:00.005-04:00

"7:30PM, RHAPSODY" was accepted by Alchemy Magazine of Literature & Art.

***
7:30PM, RHAPSODY

I pour oil. I fry perch,

minced onions and carrots.....and I
think of drowning in a car. My fists

bang on the windshield.

I haven’t turned off the stove.

My eyeballs float like loosed
white balloons. They search out

camellia in the water light. I must

recite Brahms’ rhapsody before my brain
numbs, before the perch shed their silver

scales in an upright piano

filled with darkening lake. No

bubbles. No words squeeze out of my throat.

I forget my Japanese name......I forget
I was once in my mother’s womb. My lungs

finally resign......Smoke alarm. I burned the fish.

2011-05-01T20:35:00.004-04:00

It was a fantastic weekend. I had awesome Mexican Food at Javier's Sabor Mexicano on Friday. I had a 100% grass fed buffalo-burger at Whole Foods on Saturday. I went to find good deal spring clothes within $10 and found some perfect little shirts in the kids section of one of the stores. I had my favorite mocha at Seattle's Best Coffee. Well, it has been awful at my work for two months. I made tons of mistakes and am started to lose the company profit a little bit, something we always find out after the fact.

Actually, I do not know what I can do with a master's degree in English. I think that my job is probably the best current position because I can learn business from professional people. The business knowledge will be always useful in the artistic society or any field if I want to live with it. In addition, with my personality, I cannot hinge my financial security on writing alone. In every morning, I am not happy with a glass of carrot juice with RYVITA from the Great Britten.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.20

2011-04-30T22:56:00.002-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami experiences into the first narrative. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
SNOW PEA

Please help me God,
I repeat under the crescent
moon. It gleams on a snow

pea field. The purple
petals bobble in the wind. The smell

of laundry detergent
blows from a vent. I trace
a lozenge on my thigh. Seventeen

minutes before May, you open
the door with toilet bowl cleaner. I hate
the lemon fragrance. The TV camera

shows camphor trees. Japanese school
girls march with microphones. We don’t

need the nuclear plants. We want
healthy children. I break

egg shells and cook a pea
omelet. You boil water for the chicken
flavored noodles. In the kitchen, your

finger slowly moves

down my spine.

2011-04-28T22:03:00.001-04:00

One more day to the weekend, the poetry wonderland. I am surviving.

2011-04-26T20:42:00.002-04:00

That's really right--I agree with you--I mean that my project is adapted from the details of news and stories about Japanese earthquake survivors; however, my poetic delivery is sort of missing. My biggest concern was how well I could translate those reported experiences into poetry material.

My process of writing poetry is that I observe the facts, translate it into English, and add those themes to fictional accounts in poems. The images are always based on my favorite things-- flowers, music, and family dramas. But the poetry is still news in the shape of poetry because I am adapting the narrative of news about 70% of the time.

For my next twenty-some poems, I will focus more on my artistic choices. Of course, I will edit the last nineteen poems. They are my very first drafts, so they will definitely change. I kind of surprised myself in keeping the first drafts in this blog, but please enjoy them. Next time you see them, they will be more polished. I promise.

2011-04-24T23:00:00.002-04:00

About the new poetry, I though that it was a good idea to write poems for the tsunami victims; however, as I write more poems, I feel that it is inappropriate to imitate a victim. I will never understand their real sorrow. I heard a lot of survivors' experiences, and my brain kept telling me that I must adapt their stories into poems to get their tragedy out to more people. And then I fool myself. In the end, I am writing poems for myself. I think it is just for my satisfaction.

I am burning out for sure with my job and life. My thoughts are always everywhere--work, my unemployed husband, my sick father, and my neurotic mother-- writing poems after that is further exhausting me...unfortunately.

If I cannot finish this project, I probably cannot be a real poet, so I will challenge myself until it is finished. But at the same time, I really want to do this project for the victims in Japan.

I know that there are a lot of poets who have full time careers and they have similar problems to mine.

Yes, I am a big whiner.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.19

2011-04-23T23:42:00.002-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
LETTER

I found your body. You were under a wet
wool blanket and broken concrete. Your
thin skin was frosted. My daughter kept
you warm with her chapped hands. My
son found a letter in a blue tin box with
electricity bills. You wrote it when we
argued until three o’clock in the morning.
Ganbarou today. We’ll have a better night.
You put it in my lunch-box in 2008. My daughter cries,
I don’t want a spiritual message. I want my mother.
I took off your wedding ring and gave it to her.
My son stroked her head. I heard your voice
in the cold white wind like a reverie.

***NOTE***
Ganbarou means to do one’s best work.

2011-04-22T22:23:00.001-04:00

I need a good sleep. Tomorrow, I will write.

2011-04-21T22:31:00.002-04:00

I only wrote five poems in 2010. Well, I got married, moved, and looked for work for a while. Fortunately, I got a weekend teaching job and weekday office job. And then, my father had a stroke. 2010 was one of the most unforgettable years in my life.

Now I have 18 poems (some of them seriously need to be edited,) and I really want to keep writing for 50 poems. The feeling is very similar to a coiled spring. However, I still have difficulty managing both my full time job and writing. I work for a Japanese tool company. My brain is seriously occupied by numbers, email manners, and wrenches. I am dealing with a lot of wrenches. I can turn myself into a wrench. I am confident.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.18

2011-04-20T23:15:00.006-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
Dandelion

There you were.

Your friends and brothers were
washed away on their way home.

You sat in the corner of a white

bed; still no words five
days after the earthquake.

I interviewed you. My cassette
tape recorded the cawing of a crow.

Why you don’t leave her alone? an old nurse asked me.

The rest of Japan starves for hope.

After the tsunami,

after the fire,

there is a dandelion.

The yellow dot thrives
on the wasteland, and then a grandmother is found.

There is hope
you will meet your family again.

When?

Under the sheets, you feel your cold legs.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.17

2011-04-18T22:44:00.000-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
FUKISHIMA SPRING

I want to eat a daikon-
radish with a bowl of steamed
rice. Chips in plastic bags,

tuna cans, and add water
to instant food, I eat them on a thin
mattress on the cold floor of the shelter.

Home is calling me. Tulips

bloom in the garden. Cherry
blossoms are inkblot-pink
on a natane-rainy

day. I want to walk in the rain
without my yellow umbrella;

white little petals, a sweet

smelling daphne, blue-purple
morning dew drops on young leaves…

I sing an old Japanese
spring song to my unborn child.
I am sorry—I cannot promise you spring.

I close my eyes.

A child wears a hat. Sprouts
grow like a piano

phrase note. I hold
my hands. I keep singing

the song. I feel

sleet on my cheeks.

***Note***
Natane-rainy day is a rainy day in spring.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.16

2011-04-17T19:26:00.000-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
GRADUATION

I found your pajamas
but not your body. I kept
digging around it under

the flashlight. Here was your
body: white & cold. I washed

your face with a towel and changed
into new clothes. Your body
did not have noticeable

injuries but you
smelled like the ocean. I knew

that you were dead, but I kept
talking to you all night. You
were smiling under the bonfire.

At the crematorium, your teacher
gave me your diploma and toothbrush.

Your only picture was stained
and crumbed. You had Down Syndrome
and lived at the high school dorm.

You always said, I want to have a job.
I want to be independent after graduation.

Congratulations, your teacher
shook your hand. And your body
was carried

into the oven. I decided
not to cry after March 11.

My old parents need medicine
for their diabetes. My daughters are still
in school. I need to get food for them.

I hang your picture
in my car. I greet you every morning.

Peaceful Moment

2011-04-16T14:33:00.008-04:00

Marina Veiler's "Sonette" and "Farewell"

She is a pianist from Estonia and was my former roommate, actually I could get along with. As you know I had 18 roommates in my college life. (I only stalled two spatulas from her.)

>>Click to Please enjoy her beautiful music.

The viola is played by Yuri Orloy.

***
Here is my old story about my roommates.
>>Because Because Because!

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.15

2011-04-14T22:48:00.002-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
BECAUSE

Because I’m from Nagoya, I say, Don’t worry, your
family will be fine. Because you’re from Fukushima,
you don’t think so. You pray by making thousands
of origami cranes after your American husband sleeps.
The cranes have your tear drop polka dots. Of course
I pray for the Japanese people, I say and hide my eye
drops. 12,000 became victims of the earthquake, Namu-
amida-butsu. The same as one in ten people in my village.
Ten people live in my apartment building. I’m the only
Japanese resident. My neighbor is afraid to touch my
Japanese groceries. It is not radioactive poison, I say
and eat dried green seaweed from the plastic bag.

***Note***
Namu-amida-butsu is a phrase from Buddhist prayer.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.14

2011-04-12T22:34:00.003-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
ORIGAMI CRANE

I ask my mother
to live with me in America.
She says, I will stay with your brother.

He is a police officer. He patrols
within 30km around
the Fukushima nuclear plant

and breathes in and out
in the late spring air; purple
crocuses, pansies, and

invisible radioactive particles…
Over the phone, she continues,
You have your life in America and

I have my life in Japan. I hear
pacific waves from the phone receiver.
My six-year-old son makes

an origami crane. He learned
that thousands of origami
cranes bring happiness and

peace from my mother last summer.
His little hands fold the blue
paper. I choose orange

paper. The sunset softly
shines through the thin curtain. Shadows
of two hands are on the origami

papers. The cranes sink
in the sepia colored table. Suddenly
I hear a noise

from my son and my stomach. I turn
on the kitchen light and open
the refrigerator. He carries me an apron.

The origami cranes migrate from the window.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.13

2011-04-10T00:31:00.004-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
WHITE FLAG

Like a doll with its little
feet out. It was a dead
baby next to a dead mother.
She carries a bag
full of diapers. The diapers
are heavy with sea water. I find
baby clothes & cans of milk
in her backpack. I dig a hole,
post a long poll, and fly
a white flag. The flag
is a sign that they are dead.

In my dream,
there are those dead
bodies. I shake them in my arms.
Are you alright?
The bodies are like cold
rubber bands. The faces
melt on my hands.
The eyes open
widely. I see their sockets
full of mud. Sounds

of a fluttering flag
wake me in the middle
of the night.

There are still bodies without a flag.

2011-04-08T23:35:00.003-04:00

I am happy to have composed twelve poems so far. My goal is 50 poems with my prayers to the victims there. If you find any emotionally moving news articles about the Japanese earthquake, please leave me a note. I would like to keep writing about it with many different aspects in mind. A day after a day, a poem after a poem, I hope people in Japan heal from this disaster.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.12

2011-04-06T22:37:00.003-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
BRIDGE

1.
My sister and I were running
away from the tsunami. A policeman

pointed to the pedestrian
bridge. Over the bridge,

there was a hill.

2.
The right side slowly
collapsed. People & houses

were pushed away like an origami
city. Pink, orange, green…paper

flowers, I used to make with my sister.

3.
Our origami city was underneath
a wool blanket tent. We listened to Satie’s

piano music. With a flash light,
it was preserved in eternal

peace until the blanket fell.

4.
I saw the policeman’s head
flash in the water.

Where is my sister?

I called out her name over the hill.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.11

2011-04-05T20:12:00.002-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
TOKYO WATER

Tokyo sakura: cherry
blossoms; from the train
windows, I see Japanese
pink petals: the petals are blown
by the spring breeze: the nuclear
breeze ripples puddles; the meteorologist
said, the breeze; no harm, but children
should drink bottled water: no water
left in the supermarkets; I import
unpopular Canadian water;
again, I stayed overnight thinking about
water; a water strider wants to splash
the rain water; rain boots & rain coat & rainbow
umbrella; must wear sleek clothes
to protect your body from the radiation; again
the meteorologist said, the soil absorbs
water; spinach glows with dew
drops in the morning.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.10

2011-04-04T20:43:00.002-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
PERSIMMON TREE

I’m waiting for my wife at the second
floor of our house. The first floor was
full of mud. I can’t take off my shoes.
The washing machine knocked over a
persimmon tree in her garden. I picked
up plastic pieces, so when she comes
back, she can plant hydrangeas. Maybe
the next earthquake crushes the house,
firefighters told me to live at a shelter.
I refuse to leave. I wash muddy rice in
the bathtub. In the refrigerator, there is
salami… I’m waiting for my wife. Every
morning, I visit the shelter to check the
survivor’s list and news. I just learned,
I have a loan to pay for the destroyed house.

2011-04-03T13:20:00.001-04:00

Peaceful Moment from Bali
The picture is from my respected professor

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.9

2011-04-02T15:22:00.002-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
UMINARI

I gave you a warm
glass of sake. Uminari; miles away
waves crashed in the ocean.

It sounded like a thunder storm,
but you only saw
stars in the sky. I plucked

the samisen strings;
allegro tempo in a small
Japanese bar. The wind
slowly blew rain clouds over the stars.

Let me grab my kimono and samisen.

I screamed when a man
carried me to the hill. Fifteen
minutes later, the tsunami
washed away the bar…

I saw your wife. She looked
for you in the survivor’s list. Her eyes
followed her finger
down hundreds of names. Uminari
echoed in her mind. I want

to play the samisen again.
On the Uminari night, I light
the candle. Your favorite sake and yellow
chrysanthemum are on the counter.

***Note***
Samisen is a three-stringed Japanese banjo

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.8

2011-03-31T23:22:00.002-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
MOTHER’S LIPS

When I was twelve, my grandfather took
me to a flower market. There were no
flowers, but dead bodies caked in mud
on blue vinyl sheets. I cleaned
my mother’s face with my handkerchief.

Every night, my mother boiled water
with a red kettle. A towel soaked
in the scalding basin. She wiped my neck,
cheeks, and behind my ears. She told me,
I am sorry you never knew your father.

After my bath, I sat in front of the mirror.
I touched my mouth, which is unlike
my mother’s. I grabbed her red lipstick. She
spanked my hand when she found the stained
pillow cases on the futon mattress.

My grandfather stroked my mother’s shoulders.
It was very cold and scary. Sleep peacefully...
He recited a Buddhist prayer. I found
the lipstick in her pocket. With my finger, I drew it on her lips.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.7

2011-03-28T23:24:00.003-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
THE FISHERMAN

I type numbers for thirteen
dollars an hour; converting Japanese
yen to U.S. dollars for eight

hours a day. My sick father says,
You’re healthy and safe. What else do you want?

After the earthquake, a fisherman lost
his boats. Three were found
in the supermarket
parking lot. The following

tsunami crushed the rest of them. My father adds,
The fisherman has a clarinet.

In my bed I drink
a glass of organic carrot juice. I turned
on the radio to my father’s favorite

clarinet concerto. Under the crescent

moon, the fisherman
plays it. Looking
down at his destroyed

hometown, he vibrates

his reed. In the ocean breeze, he inhales
invisible radioactive

dust from the damaged nuclear power plant.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.6

2011-03-27T13:25:00.004-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
OVERNIGHT

Cars congested by unlit
signals. From the forth
floor I shouted, Run and climb. The tsunami
surged every five minutes. Waves
crashed oil tankers. The flaming
houses flowed with the burning
sea. I am cold. Help me, a woman
pleaded. Her hair absorbed
the oil and ignited. Then her scorched
head sank......God, please take her to heaven,
I prayed and
prayed on my shaking legs. In the evening,
I burned my necktie to keep warm.
My eyes were wide
open in the blackout. I wanted
the sun to rise. I wanted my mother’s warm
hands. I finally dozed off…

There was an annihilated
city in front of me. I stood
with only my cellular phone in my pocket.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.5

2011-03-26T13:10:00.002-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami news/stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their amazing stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
RADIO TOWER

Leave the seashore and run up
the hill after the earthquake.

I repeated it
from the steel radio tower.

The seaweed’s garden distorted. I saw
people climbing and washing

overboard like ants. A child was held
in its mother’s arm on the bridge.

They were almost to the hill.

My hand slipped
from the megaphone. I heard
my voice in the sea water.

Like a hundred
other ambiguous bodies,
my face turned clayey.

.....After decades,
clovers grow on the debris. Its dewdrops

glitter under the stardust. The child
walks by the seashore

with its old mother. The bodies still
lie under the soil. The roots

slowly envelope the white bones.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.4

2011-03-23T22:49:00.002-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami survivors’ stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their amazing stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
MARCH

Buddhist monks lit
the temples aflame
after the earthquake, my father tells me.

The monks scattered
straw and ran with the torchlight.

On the hill, burning
temples and scriptures; ashes
flared in the moonlight. People

hurriedly climbed up the stone
stairs with bamboo buckets
.....and.....heard the tsunami…

The early apricot blossoms

spread in the evening sky. I push
my father’s wheelchair under the trees.

Leave me if it happens, he said.

I pick up a marble
.....and throw it at the tree. Yellowish-
orange petals fall to the ground.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.3

2011-03-22T22:10:00.002-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami survivors’ stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their amazing stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
MAYUMI

1.
Don’t leave my hand.
I look into my daughter’s eyes.

The black wave of houses
sweeps into my ribs; cold & heavy…

.....Two men drag me from the stream.

2.
Home is gone
leaving only a broken gate.

The concrete
smashes her blue
bicycle. I wait

for her sitting on the rubble
and recite Mayumi.....like the Buddhist prayer.

3.
A fence covered with tiny
notes about victims
leads to the morgue.

Female, a yellow apron with the crescent and three stars…

She was not in the casket.

4.
Her body
roams the ocean current. Tonight’s full

moon is the brightest in a year. Her body
deserves the sea water;
the sparking white bubbles.

Like an old story of a mermaid,
her body slowly
.....disappears from the earth.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN NO.2

2011-03-21T22:05:00.004-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami survivors’ stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their amazing stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
YELLOW DAFFODILS

The tsunami broke through the kitchen windows.
A truck surged into the dining table.

I never thought the waves would reach here.

My house slowly tilted.
I was flung off the balcony.

I think of my death.

A tin roof washed over my head.
Its sharp edge cut my arms.

My jeans were caught by a wire fence.
Splinters flooded my mouth.

I think of my mother.

She biked to the market.
I will cook daikon-radish. Will you eat at home tonight?

She might have stopped by the flower shop
on the sloping road.

Yellow daffodils always bloomed
on the dinning table at the end of winter.

It was the sign that spring would soon come.

I need to breathe.
.....I want to breathe.

From a random third floor window,
there were wet old men holding out a steel pole.

A POEM FOR THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN

2011-03-20T16:48:00.003-04:00

I am writing poems adapting Japanese tsunami survivors’ stories into the first narrative. What I can do as Japanese, I want to tell their amazing stories to English speaking countries. The poem is fictional based on a real event.

***
THE FIRST NIGHT

I clasped my hands around the trunk;
smells of dark

sea water and dirt; no lights, no
neighbors. My husband’s cold
hand rubbed my cheeks.

When the tsunami
covered the village, the neighbors
drove up the hill; a long
snaking trail of taillights to the safe place.

Let’s leave our car…
and then the tsunami dragged
and trundled the cars.....like tumble

weeds in an endless water desert. I closed
my eyes. The seat-belt bit my lungs.

.....Sudden stop; a branch
caught our car. We climbed up the tree.
Several cluttered waves washed away the car.

In the morning, we saw a police
car on the intact bridge. Our voice
disappeared into the shining

black sea water. I saw
a girl’s shoe drifting away from us.

I want to live.
My husband started
waving his scarf into the gray sky.
.....A helicopter appeared. It dropped

a rope like a spider thread.

One Week After the Earthquake

2011-03-18T20:57:00.006-04:00

It has been a week after the earthquake in Japan. There are still a lot of aftershocks and the most concerning news is of course about the Daiichi Fukushima Nuclear Plant.

>>The Daiichi Fukushima Nuclear Plant
Press Release from The Daiichi Fukushima Nuclear Plant.
All documents are written in Japanese, though.

Amazingly with Japanese technology, the nuclear plant was not damaged by the magnitude 8.8 earthquake. The active reactors properly shut down like they were supposed to. However, when the tsunami hit the plant, it knocked out the emergency generators that keep the cooling systems functioning. As you know, Japanese and American engineers and soldiers are trying to cool the plant down. I am really thankful that they volunteer to stop the radiation.

Because the two major nuclear plants are shut down, there is not enough electricity around Tokyo. The rolling blackouts started to ration the existing power re-routing some to the northern grids that were supplied by the cold plants now, and people are under extremely inconvenient life styles.

My sister usually wears high-heels and tight skirt, but she now wears tennis shoes and pants. Trains and buses have reduced schedules, so it is extremely crowded everywhere. My sister has to walk a long way to her office. Fortunately, she works at a major food company, so she does not worry about food; however, Japanese people crazily purchased water and food for the next possible emergency, so there is no enough food in the supermarkets now for everyday cooking. Also in the evening, it is pretty dark without lights and also aftershocks often happen.

In addition, there are so many bad rumors, chain mails, and Tweets. People in Japan, the Philippines, China, and the West Cost of the U.S.A, are crazy worried about radiation poisoning, so they believe a lot of rumors such as eating a lot of salt and taking potassium iodide (which they should not do). My family is still in Japan, so I am really worried about radiation. I want to ship enough food and snacks, and I want my family to come to America for a while. However, I just cannot panic about the situation. I have to be calm and judge my decisions wisely. Rumors are rumors after all.

Here is a useful homepage about the earthquake.

>>The Asahi Shinbun (Most Japanese read the newspaper)

Donation Information from the Consulate General of Japan at Chicago

2011-03-16T21:13:00.003-04:00

Here is a very useful homepage about donations for the Tohoku Earthquake. I copy and paste the information from the Consulate General of Japan at Chicago, and also you may visit their homepage to learn more.

>>Click to The Consulate General of Japan at Chicago

***

The Consulate General of Japan at Chicago expresses our sincere appreciation for the outpouring of support, kind words, and offers of assistance that we have received from across the Midwest.

Those who wish to contribute to the recovery effort may use one of the following options:

1. The Japanese Red Cross

(1) Giving financial support to those living in the affected areas

This money is disbursed by the Japanese Red Cross to donation allocation committees in the municipalities in the affected area, where it is distributed to victims of the disaster.

Name of Bank: Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation
Name of Branch: Ginza
Account No.: 8047670 (Ordinary Account)
SWIFT Code: SMBC JP JT
Payee Name: The Japanese Red Cross Society
Payee Address: 1-1-3 Shiba-Daimon Minato-ku, Tokyo JAPAN
**If you would like a receipt, please specify on the form when transferring money**

(2) Giving financial support to the Japanese Red Cross for relief operations

Name of Bank: Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation
Name of Branch: Ginza
Account No.: 8047705 (Ordinary Account)
SWIFT Code: SMBC JP JT
Payee Name: The Japanese Red Cross Society
Payee Address: 1-1-3 Shiba-Daimon Minato-ku, Tokyo JAPAN
**If you would like a receipt, please specify on the form when transferring money**

2. The Consulate General of Japan at Chicago

The Consulate is also accepting donations on behalf of the Japanese Red Cross. Any donations we receive will be forwarded on to the Japanese Red Cross, to be given to disaster victims as specified in point 1. (1) above.
Donations can be accepted only in the form of a check. Please use the below address and information to mail any donation checks to the Consulate.

Make checks out to: Consulate General of Japan
Write "Disaster Relief" in the memo line
Mail to: Consulate General of Japan
(Attn: Disaster Relief)
737 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 1100
Chicago, IL 60611

**The Consulate can only accept checks, thank you for your understanding**

3. Donations can also be made to the Japanese Red Cross through the American Red Cross

Please specify "For Japanese Earthquake Relief" when tendering the donation to the American Red Cross

American Red Cross Donate Funds for Japanese Earthquake

2011-03-15T21:33:00.004-04:00

From American Red Cross Donate Funds

>>Click to Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami

"Your gift to the American Red Cross will support our disaster relief efforts to help those affected by the earthquake in Japan and tsunami throughout the Pacific. On those rare occasions when donations exceed American Red Cross expenses for a specific disaster, contributions are used to prepare for and serve victims of other disasters."

THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN

2011-03-14T21:17:00.004-04:00

My Sister's Office in Tokyo

After March 11th, I have not talked to my family and friends yet because Japan has decided to do rolling blackouts to conserve electricity for the deprived northern areas. Especially in Tokyo, there are a lot of people that have difficulty accessing public transportation (which is the main form of moving around daily over there). I am worried about my sister and good friends who live there. I really hope nothing happens in the dark areas or crowded places in terms of crime. Of course, there are still a lot of significant aftershocks. Some people are camping inside their houses without heat, lights, and running water.

I just cannot concentrate from thinking about Japan all day long. I know that my worrying is not going to help anyone. I know my family and friends are fine. But the problems with the nuclear power plants, aftershocks, and lack of essential materials... Why can I not help them? Why can I not stand beside them and support them? I really hate that I chose to live in a foreign country.

But I am really thankful that many countries--China, Russia, South Korea, the U.S.A--are helping like they are. I would like to cheer Japan on. I want to go back and have a wonderful time with my family and friends again.

Ganbare Japan, I prey for them everyday.

THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE in JAPAN

2011-03-13T13:37:00.005-04:00

The HUFFINGTON POST has a very organized information about the Japanese Earthquake.

>>CLICK TO THE HUFFINGTON POST

I am also watching JAPAN TV, which is a free offer for AT&T U-Verse (Chanel 3680) until 3/27/2011.

Anderson Cooper will broadcast in Japan on 3/13/2011 on CNN.

THE TOHOKU EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN

2011-03-12T22:29:00.007-05:00

「日本の皆へ　少しでも多くの命が救われますように　共に生きよう！」

As you know, on Friday, March 11, an estimated magnitude 8.8 earthquake occurred offshore in the Sanriku region of Miyagi Prefecture. More than 1000 people passed away and 10,000 people are still missing.

Fortunately, all my family members are fine. My sister, who lives in Tokyo, had to walk back to her apartment from her office for four and a half hours on foot-- she usually wears sky-high high heels-- and is now staying with her fiancee's family. I am really thankful that his family welcomed her and provided a safe place to stay. When she felt the earthquake, she saw cracks explode across several walls in her building. Aftershocks are still happening often; however, at least, my family has access to enough food and water, so I am really thankful.

I actually feel restless and nervous since the earthquake happened. If another huge earthquake happens and I cannot contact my parents... How can my handicap father run away from a Tsunami...?

When I talked to my father on Friday, he said, "Don't look for us if another huge earthquake happens. We can meet each other afterward if we survive." He smiles with my mother and adds, "We try to live our best until a tsunami or disaster gets us." Now I can clearly see that I need to prepare for something huge. Now that the tsunami quickly stole a lot of life, I cannot escape that I may lose my family.

Because there are still limitations for electricity and internet access, I have not talked to them since that first conversation. However, with my Japanese identity, I want to support them however I can.

A Japanese soccer player in Germany, Atsuto Uchida, played his last game wearing his team's uniform with a message on it that read, 「日本の皆へ　少しでも多くの命が救われますように　共に生きよう！」, "For people in Japan, I hope that a lot of lives are saved. Let's live together," in German and Japanese. A lot of people are facing a fear of death or feel hopeless, but I would like to live with them. I want to support them.

I will update information of fundraisers by the Japanese ambassador in Chicago here on my blog. If you are interested in donating, please go to their homepage. They have not set up the fundraiser yet, but I believe that they will do soon.

>>Click to Consulate General of Japan in CHICAGO>>

I also drew a small art piece for $25 including shipping. If someone is interested in it, please contact me at writingnaoko>>at>>hotmail>>dot>>com. I will donate all of the money to the Japanese government in their disaster aid programs.

I pray for the people who live in Japan.

2011-03-06T14:07:00.005-05:00

For my sis' wedding (part 1)

2011-03-01T21:27:00.003-05:00

I am reading "Break The Glass" by Jean Valentine.

THE JAPANESE GARDEN

The Japanese garden
is tilting quietly uphill

--eleven wet green stones,
bamboo, and ferns--

It might be under water,
the birds be fish, colored in......And you,

masked reader:.....the glance
of your underwater lamp,

your blackwater embrace--
not bought or sold