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Sep 2017 · 506
Peach
Yuka Oiwa Sep 2017
There is a threshold at the heart of a peach--
between the wooden pit and the golden flesh of fruit.
There lie a few red, raw strands that are, impossibly, both.

The Pit [Endocarp]: Birth/Death.
The most treelike part.
Bark balled into a fist.
Inside hides the genetic beginning and future of all peach trees.

The Fruit [Mesocarp]: Maturation.
                  The delicious and beguiling, round flesh that attracts those who will scatter the seed. It tastes of sweet summer months.
Grown to be devoured,
the fruit is an ephemeral sacrifice ensuring the seed will find soil
take root
and make more of its kind.

I feel as if I'm at the red, rimmed divide between the two.
There is still so much bark from my parent trees at my core, yet I'm starting to soften into my own shape.

I know there will be a feast or a fall in these coming years and both mean a survival (of sorts).
Forgive the state of this first draft. Comments and critiques welcome. I know it needs watering.
Jul 2012 · 1.0k
Memorizing Poetry
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
I lay the paper on my tongue
and let the ink sink
into taste buds
so that I can recall
the poems when the need is dear
and the light is gone.
I've been storing up poems in my mind for a long time. I think it started with Lewis Caroll's **Jabberwocky** which my mother taught to me. From there on I choose my favorites and recite them until my voice is raw and the memory rawer; until I can't forget. I'm storing these for worse times, although in the meantime they are still a comfort.
Jul 2012 · 978
Catch of Silence
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
Ears are closed shut
    shutters drawn no
    sound comes through to glance
    upon the floor.
She speaks
     every detail tangled in nets
     upon nets of
     sentences
dumping themselves on patient ears
though patient mouth is silenced.

When the lips can come through the
     wriggling words
    The voice can not
    penetrate the closed windows
    glancing off
    and falling into the sea.

The receiver slammed down
    a slap across the face
    miles away...
    she keeps talking.
Written February 2008. I'm still trying out different ways of formatting it and would love suggestions.
Jul 2012 · 1.2k
The Tale of the Empty Field
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
The blank page
smiles, beguiling
crinkling up lines around her
beseeching eyes, behind the grin
you see her boredom for
such utter emptiness upon her.
She calls sweet nothings to
the pencil
as he stands at attention
waiting for his commands
before he crosses the field
leaving a trail of bent stalks in his
wake.
An eraser follows leaving bits
of its skins as it slithers across the trail
undoing the marks on the land.

When work is done
soldier, snake, lovely lass lie in
the grass as the moon rises above them
and the words fly up to the night sky.
Written in September of 2007. It was an imagining of what writing could be like close up and imbued with a sort of magic. The page is the lady, the soldier the pencil, the snake the eraser. I realized afterwards that there could be some biblical connotations with the man, woman, and snake but writing this at age 14 it wasn't on purpose. I do think the poem, as any poem, can mean so many things to so many people. I'd love to hear what you perceive when you read this. Thanks.
Jul 2012 · 790
Hunger
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
is starving
it knocks on my head
throwing thoughts of food
everywhere.
I pick them up
my mouth filling with
longing.
Hunger
hollows my stomach into
a bowl ready to be
filled,
smells become as clear
as water
filling, overflowing my senses.
Hunger leads
to food and then slowly
disappears
bit by bite
it tips its bowler hat

            *"Till tomorrow"
July 2007
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
We've carved a whole in this Earth
and lined it with lead,
put up our walls of wires and thoughts
till we trick ourselves into thinking that this cold depression
is the world all around.
We see the life beyond
yet our gaze is distant
our blood kin forgotten
in new ties forged from iron and gold.

We've carved a whole in this Earth
and now it's filled,
the billions huddled in the orb of metal.
Can we find balance or will we just roll away?
Fall down the hill of reality
and circle lost in infinity?
2010
Jul 2012 · 635
Un-Haiku (IV)
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
I know not
the language of love
and so I stand
mute
lost on the first word:
Courage.
Jul 2012 · 456
Un-Haiku (III)
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
We see each other
       less and less

but can we forget
       ten years

 of sight?
Jul 2012 · 921
Stitched Flowers
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
Do they slowly turn
their heavy threaded faces to the sun
or do they know such devotion would fade
them?
This was first written in August, 2010. It was recently edited (8.2.12) to this form on the advice of a Hello Poetry poet. Thanks, folks!
Jul 2012 · 593
Un-Haikus
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
Thin metal man
     arms  opened to the
sky
wet clothes
       rust his feet.
Written in the August of 2010.
Jul 2012 · 1.0k
Abandoned House in Umbria
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
The house so full of symmetry
light in every window in every
angle, 360º view around the bend
walls beginning to break from loneliness
the light awash in so many colors
on the canvas of the walls
the hill behind still wet with the sun's light
freshly painted themselves
Purples, Oranges, Blues
empty and yet so settled into the land
the house on the hill

An eternal, infernally short second as the car ride
shakes my hand and my impressions blur.
This was written in rickety green pen in my Assisi notebook last summer. My small group of travelers and I were winding our way up the hillsides of Umbria on our way home when the evening light caught this singular house. In that small window I had to capture what I saw so there wasn't any punctuation or proper capitalization. I chose to keep it that way to keep the experience whole.
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
There she bends her fluid form, milky skin dazzled with sweat,
to pluck the golden fruit from the marble earth.
It eludes her grasp, un-bruised from its fall till
she turns her back to the finish line, to her maidenhood, to her victories
and faces all her determination to catch beautiful and artificial  
apple. Midas’ own greed pulls her into succumbing to the last of Milanion’s offerings and Aphrodite’s snare.
There in her crooked form, her robes still billowing from the momentum, sandals come undone so close to the finish line
Atalanta clutches, desperately, to win her freedom and the gleaming prize.

Yet the Gods know that only one can be won.
Aphrodite’s dove proceeds the victor as he barrels to the finish,
his wedding in sight.
Written for Latin Class
Jul 2012 · 747
Life as a Pop-up Book
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
There are forces that pull us straight up to face a situation. We feel the seconds lock into place, the grating of cardboard fate against our flimsy edges, our almost mindless reaction to rise up and change the story’s end.
Are we destined to be acted upon, with all the paper parts fitted from the beginning by a Great Book Binder? Disaster with its tearing claws, fear that dissolves our intentions, selfishness with it’s cloying glue keeping us rooted betwixt the pages. Or do we surprise ourselves and those divine hands full of paper cuts when we come forth, backed with our own resolve, and raise each corresponding cut out above those terrors so…

Beautifully.
Jul 2012 · 873
Taste of a Good Ending
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
An author must understand the craft
of picking such
fruit.
The patience to resolve and then
pluck
the ending, ripe on the branch.

But any reader can taste the sweetness,
Satisfying, although it leaves such a
Singular   lingering   taste
An urge to bite
   and bite
                   and bite
until only the seeds are left,
embedded in the folds of you brain,
watered by your memory, to            grow.

Though we say that reading is our escape
All readers want reality in the end
An overripe “deus ex machina”
can never                     satisfy

the craving for
a good ending.
Jul 2012 · 3.6k
Enter Spring
Yuka Oiwa Jul 2012
Spring comes
as grasses leap forth
and emerald hues are added to the landscape,
with wildflowers peeking up from the
dewy roadside.
The world smells
fresh like worms and earth,
while birds drift down to finish last year’s
seeds.
Yellow rain boots hop
out of shelves and into the puddles,
while mud gathers and plays in the road,
gurgling with mirth at passers by.
The badminton net is resurrected,
regally looming over the lawn,
as the swings squeak joyfully in the breeze.
The fireplace gives a sooty yawn
and falls to sleep.
And in the kitchen, fiddleheads unfurl upon
a hot pan
as the old and sour scent of the earth
settles upon our plates,
spring steps lightly
onto the world.

~Yuka Oiwa
May 6, 2008
This is an old poem I dug out of my computer's memory. Even though I wrote this in middle school I still really like the imagery little me came up with.

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