Memories of Our Belagan Wedding
A net of beads, trade seeds lore,
Some wood made cloth, rice wine pours,
Banana leaf plates, bamboo bowls,
Memories linger 'round the longhouse poles.
Up the Rajang, that perilous river,
Our express boat loudly whirls,
The rapid waters through jungle cut,
Deep and dark it churls...
Longhouse people seem to stand midstream
On what, we cannot see...
Or jump aboard from a longboat's tip...
They seem to beckon me.
Some sequins, feather, beads, and mat
Covered with cloth, so colorful that
It dances at night, when the farming's done
And the longhouse meal and talk's begun.
Sit on the gong, pass food and drink,
Along with money, beads, and brass--
A parang, a shield, a hat, a dance
Will make the wedding evening pass.
The mosquito's song, a lullaby,
The moon and stars a lamp...
Sit or sleep there on the floor...
The whole family around encamped.
Ó Copyright 2002, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw.
Notes for understanding:
*Belaga-- home to my husband, found in the interior of Sarawak, Malaysia
(on the western side of Borneo)
*longhouse--a type of linked house on stilts in Sarawak
*Rajang--river in Sarawak
*parang--the long knife...heavier than a machete
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
The Sand Flea Funeral
The Sand Flea Funeral
Welcome to Parris Island,
Some news skills you will command.
That even the Devil left this place—
Said he needed a cooler space.
So let me tell you what’s the story.
You do what I say, you morning glory.
If I decide to say you stand,
Don’t you dare move a hand.
If a sand flea bites your face,
Soldier, don’t you me disgrace.
If you cannot let him pass—
Slap him, pansy, I’ll have your ass!
For that Sand Flea is a Marine Corps bug—
Kill it, and you’re just a slimy slug.
Full Marine Corps burial you will give.
So, I strongly advise you: Let the bug live.
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
Decoration Day
Decoration Day
The week before Decoration Day
To each veteran’s plot we’d go
To mow and clean up,
To plant flags to fly,
And sow some seeds to grow.
To be there.
To remember.
To honor.
The ancestors would somehow know.
So to each cemetery we’d go—
Woodland, The Bradshaw Cemetery,
Some on hilltops behind farmhouses,
Some in the woods or along
John’s Creek, Elkin’s Creek, and more…
Some easy access,
Some quite a climb.
Did the spirits see us there?
Were they comforted that the dead were not forgotten?
That their sacrifices were honored?
Then we’d go home.
Fly the flag.
Fix a family feast to be eaten after
The Parade…
The traditions are the same now
Even though they changed the name.
Memorial or Decoration…
The ancestors somehow would know.
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
“Macam Tiae Lembu!”
“Macam Tiae Lembu!”
(Malay for “Sounds Like a Cow Shitting!”)
For My Husband Avalon Ajang Ledong—
Royal Malaysian Army, Sarawak Rangers
Army training can be a chore;
In boot camp, abuse is piled on more.
You can train both days and nights
And don’t you worry about your rights…
For you have none.
Drill sergeant will bark if you are wrong.
Sometimes he’ll make you bark along.
You’ll not be left to be long idled.
You’ll find to what you’re entitled…
If you live long.
Marching here, marching there;
You’ll go marching everywhere.
You’ll go marching in the rain.
You’ll be marching while insane.
You’ll go marching up a hill.
Oh, you’ll like the marching drill.
When marching sergeant says you stop,
Don’t you let your feet ker-plop.
Just one POP he wants to hear
Or he’ll shout straight in your ear…
“Macam tiae lembu!”
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
Hard Facts Harder Faced
Hard Facts Harder Faced
Who said our soldiers could not be psychos?
Who said we always are saints?
Where is it written we do the right thing
And never show evil or taint?
War is hell, lest we forget it,
And crimes of war even much more…
Can we train a human to kill, not to feel,
Without evil allowed in that door?
Rape is a tool and an agent of war.
So is massacre, torture, mayhem.
Even a good man can snap to a monster
And live only to slay ‘em.
None of us are guiltless, much to our pain,
But we are trapped in this way,
If ever we forget the humanity of victims
From Coshocton to Mai Lai.
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
And Still the Channel to Cross
And Still the Channel to Cross
Looking around,
Nerves stretched taut,
The winds and waters churning.
All are pale.
None will return.
Deep terror in us burning.
Normandy,
Damn those cliffs,
A beach changed to bloody swampland…
Though thousands die
To win that beach
From Hell’s elitist command.
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Ironton’s Memorial Day Parade
Ironton’s Memorial Day Parade
To remember to honor and to celebrate,
To decorate the graves of those who fought…
Ironton parades through most of the middle of town—
Bands, floats, horses, clowns…
But most of all, people—
People of all types and ages.
Used to be said, if you were able,
You marched.
Whole classes of school children marched.
Men alongside the streets took off their hats,
And everyone put a hand to heart.
I remember the hours of preparation:
With chicken wire and tissue on trucks,
The band practices and marches,
Or, even Brownies getting scout cheers and songs right…
To ride in a squad car, a fire truck or an Army-Navy Duck…
Just to be in The Parade.
Now people come from everywhere to see our parade,
Our Parade…longest lasting…and proud.
May the graves be decorated,
The flag flown free;
May the flowers thrown on the River
Say thank you for liberty…
And may Ironton ever be able
To march for memory.
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
Those Orange Poppies
Those Orange Poppies
I remember the old men standing in front of Kresges
Selling small paper poppies…
Small orange flowers on a wire
That we hooked onto ourselves with pride—
‘Though some hooked them on to show they’d paid their buck,
But me, with a mix bittersweet, mostly sad—
Were always the skies gray those days,
Threatening rain?
Or, was it my heart would burst
Seeing those men whose smiles…
Smiles that never quite hid
Deeply wounded,
Woefully sad eyes?
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
Flashback to Mekong: The War in Viet Nam
Flashback to Mekong: The War in Viet Nam
For Dustin Massie, Daniel Massie, David Massie,
Wayne Massie, and James Delong, My Cousins Who
All served willingly and honorably
And still the evil fought through lives
In minds and bodies all tattered
With memories of a limb or an ear
Or a child blown up and scattered.
Flashback to the now of the time when we hid
From the nightmare of still living
With a best friend’s right arm,
All that was left, of the life he was giving…
For a country who hated us…
In a country who hated us…
No reprieve.
Nineteen years old and proud of this land
Of our birth, our family, and teaching,
Many were drafted, so they couldn’t say no,
Regardless of the masses loud screeching.
War heroes, yeah right, stoned out of our minds
Blinding to terrors more real
Than any horror king knows,
And in our souls they live with us still…
For a country who hated us…
In a country who hated us…
No reprieve.
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
A Mother Cries for Her Fallen Son
A Mother Cries for Her Fallen Son
For Mrs. Goldcamp, Our Neighbor
Never will the guns be so silent
As the silence after death
Of those fallen to fight “the cause juste.”
Is a common life so shorn
Or youth so plentiful
To be offered up this way
By the wrathful God
Who has known not childbirth
Nor the enfolding of life
Into one’s arms, one’s heart, one’s womb?
In righting wrongs,
Did my son, my own,
Die suffering?
Did he fear the end when it came?
Did he know my love
Would outlast the grave…
Was this just cause worth this blood sacrifice
Offered to the God of war…
That tears my heart always?
Ah, my son, brave man and true,
Willing soldier, mother’s pride,
Well fought against madmen gone berserk
Setting the world on fire again.
Sleep now, my son,
For the guns are now dreadfully silent
But still at ready for
Another mother’s son.
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved
During World War I
During World War I
For Grandpa Earl McKinley Bradshaw
A limb for a limb, a trunk for a trunk,
Broken bodies under broken trees
Across a land of holes and shells…
And still the artillery fired,
Bombs igniting an inferno Dante never knew—
The nightmare that was.
More men died from tree fall than gunfire,
Branches of weapons old yet new
Still brought the same end.
Dead is dead regardless of how…
And the remaining few do live?
Foreign borne to soil blood knows new yet old;
Wash it now in sanguined mud,
The creosote of millennia burst aflame—
The hatred, the fear, and the passion…
Friends fought beside now gone…
A man deemed enemy wasted,
Human parts flayed bare are seen…
But not…
Can such deep wounds of land or breast
Ever heal again?
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
The Korean War
The Korean War
For John Lewis Bradshaw, My Father
That blue square with the white letters
When sited target makes
Upon helmet or upon uniform,
Coppery, salty red lakes.
It’s not our war, but we are there
To save a peninsula from Red Peril,
We carry the war, to our dismay,
Like fish caught in a barrel.
A human wave poured out upon
The Father against the Son…
Divide them up and let them have
Demilitarized zone, not won…
Then let our soldiers coming out
Find a Red Cross no friend…
Not only give blood to pay blood
But also their own coins they spend.
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Swim, Steel Fish
Swim, Steel Fish
For Joe Wiseman, a Cousin
Deep the steel fish swims
Sometimes in waters hostile
Where other steel fish also swim…
Deep, surface, afloat.
Any wrong move,
The Deep herself unmerciful…
At bottom too long,
Or rising too fast,
Or swimming not silent enough—
Fish gone.
Close quarters,
Some go mad—it’s too close,
Too tight;
To others,
A steel second skin
That bites.
Nothing prepares for that first dive…
The pops, creaking sighs
As the Deep presses into
Claim her fish…
And will continue to squeeze
And rock her baby
As Deep and exploding other fish
Meet…
Swim, steel fish,
Swim silently, deeply and fast…
May you not be hooked
Behind that hostile line
For no one will find you there.
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
Ground Observer Ward Leader
Ground Observer Ward Leader
For Grandpa Leroy Bridges
Atop Cronacher Hill amidst the trees,
An observatory lookout…
He led the volunteers there to see
Which aircraft were about.
Wanting to help the war effort
But disability did forbid it,
He the home front to comfort;
Disappointed to join? He hid it.
Hitler threatened to take the Brits
And then to us he’d come.
The ground observer must keep his wits
And keep the vigil not numb.
If Brits fall and Hitler come
To us, we’d be third
To be hit with a mighty sum
Of bombings dropped from steel bird.
‘Though some laugh now
Thinking bombs imaginary, unreal…
But little realize Hitler…how
A world to rule—first kill.
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
Oops!
Oops!
A hot-headed Marine answered the phone
And shouted in vulgar obscenities.
On the other end, now angry too,
“Do you know who you are talking to?”
“No.”
A general.
“Sir, do you know who you are talking to?”
“No, sir.”
“Good.”
Click.
And the Marine made a rapid retreat.
© Copyright, Daphne Yvonne Bradshaw, 2000.
All rights reserved.
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