it’s all about unknowing the gaps in our histories
the story about my grandmother travelling
to Japan after the war the black and white
photographs of her sipping tea in a Japanese
teahouse is that why she is there to sip tea
her elbow pointed at the eaves her hand delicate
behind is the garden as ordered swept and leaf-
cleaned as every other Japanese garden
even the one in the woodblock print by Saito
here the forest invites us in the gate opening
to the world and closing again in solitude
there are no clouds the image is grey
grey and white no black cranes silhouetted
against the sky no shadow anywhere no figure
walking by I sift everything for another story
the one about my uncle her son prisoner
of war the visit could it be reparations
for relatives a loop travelled there and back
her kind of solitude her kind of unknowing
Poem
unknowing
Susan Hawthorne