Los Angeles Flashback
I just bought a book of Asian American poetry at a library sale, and holy shit there's a poem about the San Fernando Valley in here. The house I grew up in is about ten miles away from this intersection. The Thai temple is still there, and it is still "a busy corner."
Near Roscoe and Coldwater
(the Northeast San Fernando Valley, 1985)
Amy Uyematsu
i. Sunday
This is a busy corner.
Truckdrivers, businessmen, lowriders,
all slow down to view
the building of the Thai temple.
On the vacant lot next to gas stations
and a closed down 7-11, the roof of gold appears.
Barefoot men in orange robes
plant grass and small shade trees.
Every Sunday immigrants drive in,
they follow the light
reflected in the golden roof.
I hear chanting sounds and afterwards
the easy laughter of families
cooking lunch on outdoor grills
They fill the neighborhood with Eastern scents,
above car fumes and dry weed.
ii. Boy's Story
He is eighteen and no matter
how many times I mispronounce his name,
he always smiles, an old man's face.
I am his only Asian teacher
since he left Kampuchea.
I've read, argued, marched,
and now after seeing a film about the war,
I have the audacity to ask what he knows.
"My father killed by Khmer Rouge.
Brother killed too. Mother escaped,"
but he may never find her.
Still smiling, he tells me about
his new car. Now and then I see him,
cruising Victory Boulevard.
iii. The Crossing
Morning traffic has stopped.
A line of honking cars,
capable of crushing the small woman.
She is stuck at the railroad crossing,
the shopping cart of used cans and rags
too heavy for her thin body.
She looks like the Vietnamese grandmothers
I've seen so often in photographs,
especially her eyes,
which tend
caravans of old men and babies.
Tireless eyes keeping vigil
in the seconds of animal silence, before
each approaching assault.
Drivers yell as she talks to herself
in her own language, but everyone watches
eyes that can sift
through earth, bone, metal, blood,
knowing which fragments to save.
Near Roscoe and Coldwater
(the Northeast San Fernando Valley, 1985)
Amy Uyematsu
i. Sunday
This is a busy corner.
Truckdrivers, businessmen, lowriders,
all slow down to view
the building of the Thai temple.
On the vacant lot next to gas stations
and a closed down 7-11, the roof of gold appears.
Barefoot men in orange robes
plant grass and small shade trees.
Every Sunday immigrants drive in,
they follow the light
reflected in the golden roof.
I hear chanting sounds and afterwards
the easy laughter of families
cooking lunch on outdoor grills
They fill the neighborhood with Eastern scents,
above car fumes and dry weed.
ii. Boy's Story
He is eighteen and no matter
how many times I mispronounce his name,
he always smiles, an old man's face.
I am his only Asian teacher
since he left Kampuchea.
I've read, argued, marched,
and now after seeing a film about the war,
I have the audacity to ask what he knows.
"My father killed by Khmer Rouge.
Brother killed too. Mother escaped,"
but he may never find her.
Still smiling, he tells me about
his new car. Now and then I see him,
cruising Victory Boulevard.
iii. The Crossing
Morning traffic has stopped.
A line of honking cars,
capable of crushing the small woman.
She is stuck at the railroad crossing,
the shopping cart of used cans and rags
too heavy for her thin body.
She looks like the Vietnamese grandmothers
I've seen so often in photographs,
especially her eyes,
which tend
caravans of old men and babies.
Tireless eyes keeping vigil
in the seconds of animal silence, before
each approaching assault.
Drivers yell as she talks to herself
in her own language, but everyone watches
eyes that can sift
through earth, bone, metal, blood,
knowing which fragments to save.