RICE PADDIES
http://www.maverickmagazine.com/articles/378/1/RICE-PADDIES/Page1.html
Kevin Dobbs
Kevin Dobbs returned to the USA
recently after 18 years in Asia. He’s Dean of Language Arts and Fine
Arts at Yuba College in Northern California and has placed poems,
fiction, and essays in many journals and anthologies including Chelsea,
Raritan: a Quarterly Review, The New York Quarterly, Carolina
Quarterly, Florida Review, Sou’wester, Soundings East, Poet Lore,
Mid-American Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, Karamu, Gulf Stream, Writer’s Forum, and New Delta Review. By Kevin Dobbs
Published on 06/14/2009
Over Mt. Fuji
a storm, bruise
purple, slides
into the valley:
in the stroller,
daughter Asia, new
like the sprouts
and as confounded
a storm, bruise
purple, slides
into the valley:
in the stroller,
daughter Asia, new
like the sprouts
and as confounded
Over Mt. Fuji
a storm, bruise
purple, slides
into the valley:
in the stroller,
daughter Asia, new
like the sprouts
and as confounded
as they would be
if suddenly they were given
eyes, wags her head,
right to left, as though
her little gourd
were the whole world
and she wants it to turn
all the way around
to make the storm
go away. The wind pipes.
Her hair and dress
flap wildly. She cries.
The wind, suddenly frigid,
flutes the stroller tubes.
The paddies swirl
and spray.
I grip the handles, wheel
her back towards home.
The wind presses us back hard
again and again.
I take her into my arms,
the stroller lifting, kiting fast
toward Fuji. Finally
we see our little house.
We cannot see the door yet,
only the front window’s
light covering the garden.
Then behind the glass, swaying
with the wind and rain, mother’s
shadow; shuddering as it empties
over the garden floor.
Copyright © Kevin Dobbs, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
a storm, bruise
purple, slides
into the valley:
in the stroller,
daughter Asia, new
like the sprouts
and as confounded
as they would be
if suddenly they were given
eyes, wags her head,
right to left, as though
her little gourd
were the whole world
and she wants it to turn
all the way around
to make the storm
go away. The wind pipes.
Her hair and dress
flap wildly. She cries.
The wind, suddenly frigid,
flutes the stroller tubes.
The paddies swirl
and spray.
I grip the handles, wheel
her back towards home.
The wind presses us back hard
again and again.
I take her into my arms,
the stroller lifting, kiting fast
toward Fuji. Finally
we see our little house.
We cannot see the door yet,
only the front window’s
light covering the garden.
Then behind the glass, swaying
with the wind and rain, mother’s
shadow; shuddering as it empties
over the garden floor.
Copyright © Kevin Dobbs, 2006. All Rights Reserved.