Where was he that day, my father?
That summer he was in Japan
Learning the country's beauty
Starting to love forever the Isle
of Miyajima, with its bright red torii gate
he brought his love home
Called our house Sayonara
Taught me to eat with chopsticks
And to count in Japanese
Gave me Japanese boxes and carvings
And yet, when I was 9, he showed me
Photos of Hiroshima, afterwards,
Told me of how he was a Marine
chasing Japanese colonels
For war crimes courts.
What beauty did he see to override
the cruelty, the bombs, PoW and refugee camps
So that he generated in his daughter
Not the visceral hatred so many brought home,
but a lifelong admiration of its culture?
Lmc 6 August 2015
