Midwestern Return

With the windows up it’s so quietThe dead and I can only hear the engine humThe AC pump purring its … More

Ode To Farming

A Hawai‘i boy spends an autumn weekend farming in WisconsinReplaces fence posts, pulls tree stumps using chains and a tractorCuts … More

Marches On

Grad school was a bad time to discoverI was burned out on reading and writingHad only a desire for playing … More

Transformed to Tiklings tinikling

Now that we’re old enough at eight, I supposeWe learn the Filipino dance called TiniklingOur school is far ahead on … More

Notes on Growing up a “Jr. Bow”

Preschool (aka The Four-Year-Old Group):  Mrs. Crooker.  Pineapple cubes with mint leaves and toothpicks (sharp). Kindergarten:  Miss Snow.  Alma Kimura and I vow we … More

Hope

Memorization came easily for her, and at her first awarenessof this, she assumed everyone had been born equally able.As she … More

Violence

When he’d done something wrong, Jerry wouldn’t go home. “Wrong” could be a poor class proficiency report from school or … More

Will you honor this price? he asks

In my record store days, so hard to forget the bad,mostly race-related incidents back in the wild Midwest,haunting me when … More

We Were Then

That silver flame subdued all color  into black and white. Remembering neon paint and black light nights. I recall the … More

Nightmare 101

Welcome, students, before we get started,I’d like to get to know a little about you.There’s an index card on your … More

In the Hood

Well this is easy, I think,reading the simple instructionson the small piece of paper inside the plastic bag.But it’s not … More

So-So Funny

Students writing their PhD dissertations, that gobstruck time, wandering like zombies, as though they’ve been whacked on the head with … More