Yumiko Tsumura (Photo courtesy of the author)
Below are poems contributed by Yumiko Tsumura, a poet residing in the United States.
(Introduction by the author)
My maternal grandfather and his family lived and operated a vineyard in Fresno, California. Before the Pacific War broke out, he took his entire family back to Japan and returned alone to his vineyard. On Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 to round up and imprison everyone of Japanese ancestry in the U.S. Pacific states, and my grandfather was incarcerated at one of the internment camps. In December 1945, following the end of World War II, my grandfather was shipped back to Japan.
His eldest child was my American born mother, who was sadly ostracized in Japan during the war as if she was a spy, and the military police inspected our house to look for anything in English. I was born in 1939, and the Pacific War made a deep and lasting impact on my life, the memories never fading. History does not tell much about the children who had to live through this war. I felt the need to shed light on these children's experiences through the power of poetry with specific images, and open that world to readers now and in the future.
***
The Sufferings
(on my memory wall)
by Yumiko Tsumura
*
Noon August 15, 1945
the Pacific War ended
after that thin line
everything adults had told us
was a lie
-
Growing up in time of war
on the Kii peninsula in Japan
no colorful toys, dolls and crayons to play with
but sand and stones on the beach
we folded cranes from newspapers
full of propaganda
when not chased by a B-29, we chased
dragonflies and praying mantis
we were told to eat fruit and cake
from picture books
to fill our hunger
listening to the chirring of cicadas
-
Our flowerbed turned into a dugout
the family squatted together
in a small dark hole
hearing a bomb explode nearby
on the old temple
-
When we all crawled out
there was a momentary ease
against fear
***
Ode to the End of My Pacific War in the Village
by Yumiko Tsumura
*
the men were gone to war
all the metal in the house was confiscated
women and children were told to make spears
from bamboo in the thicket to fight with
-
just then a B-29, the "Enola Gay" dropped an A bomb
at 8:15 AM August 6 on Hiroshima
and three days later another one on Nagasaki
the Soviets were invading from the north and America from the south
-
August 15 our family gathered in a room
with a radio and sat in tight silence
at noon
the voice of the emperor
shrouded in mystery
declared an unconditional
surrender
-
the room was jolted
all was in a still time
-
he saved the nation intact
not split like East and West Germany
-
in the Japanese creation myth
the emperor was the direct descendant
of the Sun Goddess, Kami
we were to worship and sacrifice for him
-
school children were told to stay back 3 feet
not to step on the teacher's shadow
-
after noon on August 15, 1945
the emperor became a symbol
not the last emperor like in China
he and the imperial family were
not shot and burned
like the Russian Czar and his family
democracy and a new constitution
was planted
things we had been made to believe in
faded out
we had to freeze "freedom"
as we did not know how to use it
to be one's own person
-
at dawn the moon was visible through an open window
the sun rose between familiar mountains
the river was flowing without corpses
and having a picture book of English fairy tales
was no longer a crime
-
one rainy morning an airplane was dropping
not bombs, but food over rice paddies
children ran barefooted
fighting to grab some food
mud splashed all over my little body and hair
I reached a bag of bread and biscuits
-
shortly after that incident, a jeep stopped
on an unpaved road and the hungry
village children gathered around it
a smiling G.I. was trying to give
American candy and chewing gum
so colorful with a sweet flagrance
but children were told not to take them
the Yankee with blonde hair and blue eyes
did not look poisonous
-
something foreign and romantic
had inspired me to fly
over the pink clouds
beyond the horizon
of the Pacific Ocean
in my dreams
***
Embraced by Nature after the Pacific War
by Yumiko Tsumura
*
the divine ruler of Japan, the emperor
came out from the shrouded mist
and travelled by train
to visit every part of the islands
to encourage
the war beaten people
-
in June, 1947
when the train was going through my village
people lined up along the railroad
and bowed deeply not allowing themselves
to look at him because the symbol was
too dazzling
-
the starlit night became safe
children had fun chasing
fireflies along the river bank
with the music
of frogs croaking
-
we were excited to wake up
to eat potatoes baked in a mound
of straw and went out
to the river's mouth in low tide
to dig shijimi clams for soup
-
a wounded soldier with one leg
came every noon ringing a bell
in the scorching sun
to sell us popsicles he made
from sugar cane
-
the villagers were repairing the fallen
fence of the temple
and weeding the graveyard
to welcome the dead's
return for the Obon festival
-
after a typhoon passed
from the ashes of the old field
that went through the war
heavenly Japanese
amaryllises bloomed along the roadside
and uplifted the people
with delicate and powerful elegance
-
the Kii peninsula coast was blessed with
mountain oranges, ocean fish and seaweed
the Hinomisaki lighthouse was illuminating
the peaceful
Pacific Ocean
***
Yumiko Tsumura was born in 1939 in Wakayama, Japan. She received her B.A. and M.A. in American Literature from Kwansei Gakuin University and an M.F.A. in Poetry and Translation from the University of Iowa. Her books of poetry include Woman of March (Finishing Line Press, 2017), and Man of Peace (Black Mountain Press, 2020). Her books of translation include Kazuko Shiraishi's poetry Sea, Land, Shadow (New Directions, 2017) and Tamura Ryuichi Poems 1946-1998 (CCC Books, 2000), in collaboration with Samuel B. Grolmes.
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