Kubota to the Chinese Poets Detained on Angel Island


My geography does not match yours, surrounded by the bay
And the city so close by you can see it from the hill of Island.
I am at the middle of an ancient sea, raised up out of water
To make a dusty land of red and pink rock, yellow cliffs,
                                                                        and snowpeaks
Far from the Great Ocean you crossed from your home villages.

But we spend our days alike—gazing at bare walls,
Composing poems to carve on them, bedding down at night
To the whistling of wind through bars and barracks.
When the moon shines and insects chirp under our bunks,
Grief and bitterness wrap around us like cold, winding sheets,
And we rage against the whites and the promises
This land made to us it would be a heaven of gold mountains.

Hard living through confinement—our families not near,
Interrogators trying to catch us in stories
That do not match what your immigration papers say,
That do match lies informants have said about me.

Can you remember how many steps to the duck pond?
How many houses were south of the village well?
Which order brother died in the Year of the Ox?

They ask me about the inkstone and the radios in my house
The FBI took on December 8^th, about the military school
I attended in Hiroshima, though I was born in U.S. like them.

We try to act bravely, as we were taught, chests full of blood.
But we are not heroes.  The wild geese of the bay echo your cries,
The coyotes mimic mine, and only ghosts escape these places,
Rising from the cold bodies of men who hang like butchered meat
In the lavatories, pale lights shining through the thin gauze
                                                                                    of their clothes.
They will see their families, but only from the clouds.
I pity them, but share my dreams with you, poets of Island,
Trapped beneath the guard towers of history.

When they ask you your brother’s name, say It is Kubota.
When they ask me what light attracts the fish at night,
I will answer the light of angels from Island.
When they ask what fish come to the light,
I will say a fish that swims The River of Heaven.

Bellagio, Italy
30 June 2005