Black Silk

I met an old woman several years ago who was there and she told me she had a doll.

An 11 year old awakes before the late summer sun
has even made its glorious presence known.

The little girl looks towards a small porcelain doll,
neatly dressed, sitting on the shelf near her bed.

She speaks silently to her little friend whose
dimly moonlit eyes can somehow see her thoughts...

Grandfather Takahiro says we won’t hear them,
but he is blind.  So how will he know if they come?

Will I ever marry a nice young man? One who is
perhaps a boy I don't even know yet from my city?

As I do yours, my mother calls my hair Black Silk
as she gently combs it each night before I go to bed.

Will my mother ever roll my hair into a wedding bun
and then hold it together with bamboo sticks?

You have a Kimono!  Shall I never wear the white one
that Grandmother is already sewing for my marriage?

Her doll is afraid, interrupts, and asks her to go and see.
They both fear that today may be the day the planes come…

 

Quietly passing the door where Grandfather sleeps, I pause.
I ask his ancient ancestors to protect both of us this day.

As the warm summer sun rises and breaks from the water
a tear forms in each of her eyes and one spills to her cheek.

If I see planes coming to my city like the two cities last week,
I don’t know if I should run and tell my grandfather… or not…

D McDaniel ©2007

Reviews

[Gandré]

beautiful story.. great narrative poetry: is there morals in any war? naive philosophy of mind and action has led, for example, to ‘consequentialism’ - the view that whether a person intends something or not is irrelevant to the question whether they are responsible for it. there were even familiar justifications for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which with no doubt was murderous, they presuppose just such thinking. Einstein could not forgive himself, that he told to the world what he told, while he was dying.

[Pratibha]

a doll and an innocent family wrapped up in a disaster about which they were neither responsible nor aware....!

[hyancynthstofeedthysoul]

Merely lives sacrificed on the fiery altar of the g-ds of war. Hiroshima and Nagasaki with all that is going on in the world, I fear people have forgotten them. It is well you have not.

[LadyLove]

This is a touching look at how deeply a child looks into her questionable future...and her thought to say nothing to her grandfather to save his knowledge of doom before it strikes...if it were to happen. I like how you separate her thoughts with color. Very nice.

[Sam Freeland]

Your memory and words fill us with the wonder you felt as you recalled the past.
I believe your ability to trancend time and space takes us there with everything
you write. As I read and reread this wondeful poem, my joy is immense. sam