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Marina
I came here to witness my future.The seaside town where I learned to walk and pedal without training wheels. Where my older brother rocked the rat tail and painted brushstrokes like Mr. Miyagi.
Where I watched my cousinsswing nunchaku in ninja suits while I crawled out of strollers.
I came here because the wavessing a different lullaby upnorth, here the language isfamiliar.
Where my grandfather drank every night at the Legion Hall. Where my grandmother watched Japanese game shows between kitchen shuffles lost in sukiyaki smoke. Where my motherused to sneak out to the dunes todrink
Sapporo with the older kids. I came here to learn of mymemories. Where I threw rocksat windows,
shattering along dilapidated militarybarracks. Where ghosts in uniform hovered along the deserted commissary.
Where I played with imaginaryfriends in kimonos who looked like my mother before she was forced
out of Japan. I came here to witness my future.
Where my father sold illegalsubstances in parking lots along Big Sur watering holes. Where my father lived
in rehab while my brother recited his ABCs. Where my father learned the trade of anelectrician and kissed the seashore good-bye. I came here to swallow the tin cans. Where the saxophone hangs
taut around stable shoulders at Sly McFlys. Where Miles
Davis took the stage at the Monterey Jazz Festival after splitting with Coltrane. Wherethe summer sea lion season transformsPacific Grove into siren song falsettos. I came here to gain identity. Where my uncleplays back sumo tournaments while I eatsesame crackers.
Where my grandmother remembers Hokkaido and the dirt roadsof Tokyo.
Where I learned why I have to take off my shoes beforeentering someone’s house.
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This poem is from the book Bamboo on the Tracks: Sakura Snow and Colt Peacemaker (Finishing Line Press) and can be found at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/bamboo-on-the-tracks-sakura-snow-and-colt-peacemaker-by-tony-wallin-sato/
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Bamboo on the Tracks: Sakura Snow and Colt Peacemaker is an exploration of impermanence and the fragile dance between multi ethnic identities. These poems flow through the author’s Hapa experience without shying away from incarceration, overdoses, and heroin addiction, but also the multi generational trauma created from war, poverty and otherness. This collection is broken into three sections to reflect the interconnectedness of nature, emptiness and ancestry. We are taken from the backcountry trails of Northern California to protests in Paris, psych wards to jail cells, and the Japanese landscapes of the mind. Bamboo on the Tracks is an experience of meditation on the cushion and the attachments we face on the street simultaneously.
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Tony Wallin-Sato is a Japanese American who works with formerly/currently incarcerated individuals in higher education. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from California State University, Long Beach. His chapbook of poems, Hyouhakusha: Desolate Travels of a Junkie on the Road, was published in 2021 through Cold River Press. Bamboo on the Tracks: Sakura Snow and Colt Peacemaker was selected by John Yau for the 2022 Robert Creeley Memorial Award and his second book of poems, Okaerinasai, is forth coming from Wet Cement Press.
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