The Last Melon

She walked on knowing if she didn't make a decision before sunset
her confidence her clarity her willingness to gamble everything
would exponentially curve away into the soft greedy darkness.

Her feet began talking to her in that scrunched up way things get
when bits of grit conspire with sock lint to press here or suddenly
over here ooh here this sensitive place near the veruka like random
annoying acupressure from a really angry pedicurist but she couldn't
stop walking she kept an eye on the long ditch to her right fringed
in cane grass and wet with days of rainfall there was something
that compelled her to pay attention to this cut in the land that ran
parallel with the road as she made forward progress.

Birds once settled for the night now burst out of their peace
and she felt irrationally bad for it shaking her head
a toad or frog leaped from the grass into the water
would she do that she wondered when faced with immediate
danger?

Ever since she shouted out in the cantina she'd been running
running  from the mob running from the corrupt authorities
she was a Banana Woman a revolutionary figure unarmed
and highly dangerous and she made the grave mistake
of fomenting her open rebellion in a nest of melon growers
bitter melon growers in fact because there was only one
remaining melon in the world and they refused to accept
this fate they stuck together and vowed vengeance they
would sooner starve than admit the Banana Woman
had finally won they would never change their ways
but they would find her and skin her alive and throw
her carcass into the ditch.

Banana Woman

She threw the banana skin down in a clear act of defiance
nay a challenge a Take that! you arrogant so and so a
Put that in your pipe and smoke it! sort of action
or maybe not maybe

She carefully peeled away that banana's yellow cladding
a little spotted she noted then raised the exposed fruit
high in the air and cried Viva la Banana! and everyone
in the cantina held their breath to see what happened next
or perhaps

She's in her F250 diesel bumping and jostling down
open country roads in the wilds of Hawai'i when
through the open window she flings the banana skin
like a limp starfish legs akimbo into the bushes
but she misses and the banana skin smacks into
the Caution Nene Crossing sign and sticks there
splayed out for several days until a county roads
worker stands before the sign with a long bamboo
pole pushing and poking until the now brown
decaying sunburnt skin drops to the ground where
he leaves it walking away with a sense of job
well done leaving the banana skin to rot into
the ground like so much compost
perhaps that's how it went or perhaps perhaps

She was being followed and she blithely threw
down the banana skin into the dark and listened
hard making her way forward listened until
she heard the cry Aaaah! and The Fall

Gathering of the Elders

If that phrase sounds like a nursing home or even more euphemistically
a care center then your imagination is bereft you are missing some vital
concept your way is too narrow but you will be forgiven for the paradigm
you're sticking to with all four feet like a bewildered gecko wondering
what's up what's down and how long will I keep my tail because that's
the norm ain't it so when we hear that Ms M got medivacked to Queen's
Hospital for an emergency operation and you know what you know
about the cats and dogs the porch suspended in tree tops and the flotsam
and jetsam of one person's life as it finds the waterline on the cruise
ship called our town you think to yourself how much more can I get
out of this teabag how much longer can my day to day look like oh
man I don't even know what I'm talking about as usual I'm talking
around it I'm one too an elder not becoming but arrived and the gathering
is done in passing in coffee shops and market places occasionally at one
another's house but forgive me now for wondering if my lofty use
of that phrase where community elders actually sit around and work
on what's good for the community itself sits there on the bottom
of that stack of dusty metaphors clichés old wives tales and folk
sayings not to mention personal fantasies based on things I heard
about Lakota Yoruba Pitjanjara Inuit Maasai Yaqui Ainu and the
Disappeared in Smoke but Still There at Your Shoulder Grandfathers
and Grandmothers how will we ever know respect when we lock
up our lives in boxes and live alone and what's this about embracing
the kupuna wearing mu'umu'u and shuffling between Nakahara's
and Takata's with our dark secrets we no like share so what
if the people lock up their kids in schools all day race through
what they call lunch to the minute so they can wander around
the playground under supervision so what if people look at you
making two three four journeys a day for one thing maybe
stumble a bit and they say oh! oh! get on with your own life
clean your windows one pane at a time go to the library
at story time get on your knees and get your fingernails
dirty on the pollen path stop feeling so useless forgive yourself
don't listen to any of this and especially that gather together
oh ye elders but remember the old minds of the toddlers and weep
for it is your rain will nourish the catnip arugula and water lilies of the world