Hedy Habra

Hokusai’s The Great Wave  

                        in wake of Fukushima, 2011

 

It is said Hokusai never intended to represent

a tsunami, but an okinami, a wave of the open sea,

erect, foam curling up its claw-crested fingers

over stunned boatmen surfing in reverence.

 

And I wonder what made that captive wave leap

out, release the dormant creature locked in

for centuries in shades of Prussian blue,

its delicate swirls spewing muddy torrents

 

over Fukushima’s shores, erasing in black ink

all shapes ever drawn, engraved or breathing,

its voracious appetite growing in silence, its heart

melting blackness into the heart of nuclear reactors.

 

What made it erupt like a maddened volcano

famished for blood, steel teeth crushing tiles, wood,

metal, belching in a roar engulfing homes, cars,

boats, buses, men, women, children, newborn,

 

unborn, all swept like broken twigs and fallen leaves,

carrying seeds that will not grow for seasons to come.

The wave of the open sea now speaks in tongues,

each curve, a threat, its filigree lines and blue hues

 

seem steeped in lethal pigments. In the print’s empty

spaces, spirits hold their breath, dotted droplets

filled with suffocated, inaudible voices, whisper:

 

Remember me, I no longer have this beautiful skin.

Remember the light that came out of my eyes.

Remember my story never to be told.

Remember my smile, my hands, my dreams.

Hokusai, your okinami has lost its innocence.

 

First published in Sunrise from Blue Thunder Japan Anthology

From Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015)

 

 

The Memory of Unspoken Words

                        After Siren by Frédéric Clément

 

She has landed on the deck of an abandoned wreck, fails to remember how she swallowed the fiery ball that pulled her like a tidal wave into the stillness of a metallic sky steeped in lavender where angry clouds hover around the drowning sun suffused with coral. Her pillow is a melted cloud filled with birds that forgot how to fly and now swim in a pool that overflows the deck, washing the souls of dead sailors from every leak and corner. She presses on her eyelids to find a different ending to their story, sees her body glow with scales and the fish in the pool grow wings. She knows every drop of water will vanish at dawn, erasing with black ink her luminous shape, alive only in the formless night, and the rainbow will soon shine over a boat with discarded bags heavy with the stained memory of unspoken words and broken planks. 

 

First published by Pirene’s Fountain

From Under Brushstrokes (Press 53 2015)

 

 

Once Upon a Time, an Olive Tree

  

My elders were chopped down and burned,

their roots too deep to uproot, their veins spread,

 

shoots spoke in tongues, mapping the field,

an invisible presence throbbing under the earth,

 

thirsting for each raindrop, remembering every bird’s

trill and nest, the air redolent with blossoms,

 

the smell of grilled skewers, baking stones,

freshly roasted coffee, feet stomping the earth

 

with joy, a rhythm of life inscribed in every pore.

Will children ever know how much I miss their branches’

 

lacy shadow woven with stories and wisdom?

 

First published by Pirene’s Fountain

From The Taste of the Earth (Press 53 2019)