Ashes
To sweeten the dish, add salt. To bear the pain,
render the insoluble. She envied
the past its incursions, yet the past yields to all,
avoidance to acceptance, trees to smoke.
My mother brought to this country a token of her death to come.
Now it sits on my shelf bearing implements of music.
In her last days I played Sakura on the mandolin,
trusting that she might find comfort
in the blossoms fluttering through the failing notes,
a return to mornings
of tea and rice, of
warmth and paper walls and deep laughter.
Today the rain spells forgive
and every idea becomes form, every shadow a symptom,
each gesture a word, a naming in silence.
Scatter me in air I’ve never breathed.
* * *
“Ashes,” first appeared in Extract(s) in 2013, was reprinted on The Reverie Poetry Journal, and is included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.
O at the Edges 
Wonderful 💞😍💕👍🏻
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Thank you.
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“Scatter me in air I’ve never breathed”… that is why you are a master poet!
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Ah, Daniel. Thank you. I struggled with that line.
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It seems impossible to me that you could “struggle” with a line that natural and perfect. The words struggle and Okaji don’t belong in the same sentence!
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Ha! Struggle should be my middle name. I knew what the line needed to convey, but getting it there took a while.
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“Today the rain spells forgive”…wow. Spectacular line and a spectacular poem. Thank you for sharing this.
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Thanks very much, Robert.
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“Every idea becomes form”: for me that captures the spirit of your poetic style in general. And this one does so beautifully.
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Thanks, Gary. Maybe a little WCW and Creeley crept in.
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Beautiful, poignant, lines
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You’re very kind, Derrick. Thank you.
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“Every shadow a symptom”….and adding German at the end. Awesome
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Thanks, Shane. Typo! But some of my best lines start out as typos.
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Oh, how achingly beautiful. I particularly loved the lines “trusting that she might find comfort in the blossoms fluttering through the failing notes,”. What a fine writer you are…thank you for this…
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Thank you, Patti!
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Achingly beautiful, Robert.
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Thank you, Merril.
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You are much inside life’s circles these days. (K)
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Uncomfortably so, at times, Kerfe.
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Add salt, indeed. Grief-song’s transubstantiation into sweet silence is a holy source of nourishment.
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Life’s little counterbalances.
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that last line just nails it – beautifully done!
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Thank you, Sarah. Much appreciated.
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Very moving.
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Thanks very much, Veronica.
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I love this poem, I come back to read it again and again.
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Thanks very much! I’m so pleased it resonates for you.
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