I met Mother Taro once,

        She is an angel you know

I saw her in the greenery of
John Pia's Taro Patch.

She dawned the past, the present
and the future
More plant than woman,
and yet more root than angel wing--
Though her heart shaped wings
Repelled water as well
as any albatross or nene.
A rare bird in spirit.

She shared her plight to me
Of this modern time,
Watching the changes
In the faces of human kind

She remembers being a Goddess
And providing for all the people
In a time where she
traveled with the people
Over waters near and far
In double hulled canoe
To share her spirit
With new families.

And now, she feels like a myth
Told and retold by the elders
Alive more in the memories
And less on the land.

As she spoke, the message
Became more and more clear.
When might and power and greed and money
Seem of more value than
Root, wing, earth and pluck
We must take the time,

take the time

To tend each keiki and tend with care
So they may multiply
In healthy soil, water and air

So We the Living
Can live into eternity
For the winds of time
Will spite the might,
She said.
Seize this time
Seize this  day,
Seize this moment
to tend
We the Living.

-----------I weave my grand                     mother's spirit to life--------
             when I paint with my             words what she dreamed
             in her life.  My grandmother's kimono sat in the dark never
            worn; so needs a     dusting--I lift it up      into this light to be
           seen, to be heard,      to be felt, fabric of          loving  heart
          dreams to be.  It's     not perfectly shaped   or tattered or torn,
         rather fermented       beyond her time  to      take form.  My
       Grandma loved  to        eat her white rice          she ate thirty
      seven million grains      of rice by the time         she reached her
      104-- Born on a             sugarcane plant'tion         on the coast of
     Oahu, a child in               the tropics then a       teen in Japan. Her
    family returned to          their roots to learn,    & grow, reenter the
   cultural force. She                discovered her              new talent as
                                            ------------------------------
                                  ­              K  I   M   O  N  O          
                                               ­     A R T I S T
                                            --------------------­----------
                                       Kikuyo  Yamamoto became
                                     liberated as an artist and then
                                     her life changed as her family
                                    demanded she leave her position
                                   and marry away to a Japanese man
                                    who lives in California (my Grand
                                    father).  The matchmaker said it
                                     would work really well....She
                                   endured life as an American farm
                                     wife, then life in Japanese intern-
                                    ment camps. Five  children, nine
                                    grandchildren...Dear Grandmother
                                     I know you had lots to surrender-
                                           I honor your life as mother,
                                           grandmother, and artist --I
                                          wove this poem in the form
                                       of  a kimono for you  May your
                                         spirit rest in peace. I love you.

ludicrous without the laughter
this
Absurdity

sun baking villages of wild flowers for dead bees
bare earth torn to discover luminous oil
what are we doing?
why are we here?

why are the floods pouring from the sky?
Extraordinary tears
from lives spent
no more
to be seen again?

summer mountains
getting covered with winter snow
why are the polar bears
floating on glacial ice away from their livelihood
Why are the seasons changing,
from spring into winter
and from summer into the unknown
why are the whales swimming
to the shore?

Did we rewrite the wheel of time?
did we change the drumming of the drummer
without asking why?

The cotton clouds above me
silently scream as they stream
into the empty sunset
in the darkness of my mind

I have heard to act like we are
walking on our grandmother's face
when we take a walk on our earth,
What would grandmother say
if she were here today?

Stop!  See
the basil buzzing with a bee
Listen,
let your eyes
fill with the light of hope,
feel it,
and
let
this
gold
ray
touch
the
sun
in
your
mind
to
illuminate your landscape....

...I remember,
I remember why we are here
and what we are doing

don't let
someone else's
thoughts and actions
tear your earth apart

let the earth sneeze
let the bees breeze
let the sunshine awaken
let the dry rocks get covered with river clouds
let the tears fall,
touch and listen to grandmother

if the old footprints on her face
do not say I love you,
how can this next step say
I love you?