Amy Uyematsu
February 2002

A Recent Conversation With My Grandmother


When I wake up in middream
or find myself humming
a melody with no sharps or flats,
I know I've been outside of this time.
If only I could speak with obachan,
not be groping inside this buried place
for the carelessly thrown out
language of immigrants,
only two generations
since leaving Shizuoka.
She knew I would go back to Izu peninsula,
climb the slopes of Omuro-yama
with my mother's cousin,
the wind slapping my hair
hard against my face,
no sound from the ocean below
as the wind moans
through the long mountain grass.

But I can’t say the words.
We gave up a language well suited to farmers
and poets, its rhythm uneven with
brush stroke and pause.
It holds sound inside picture
with a thousand possibilities
for shadow and light.

Instead I must use
these words with no memory.

from 30 Miles from J—Town, Story Line Press, 1992.