Hawaiian Pearl
Waters around the Arizona seethed,
burned with blood and oil
as Chaos gripped the Harbor.
Uncle Bud reeled about the deck.
His voice rising against the din:
“Abandon ship! Abandon ship!
Abandon the goddamn ship.”
That afternoon
in a makeshift medical camp
he died from shrapnel wounds.
My grandmother told me years later
that he had saved others.
Fire, flesh, and smoke dissolve into the sweep
of a larger panorama
when volcanoes formed these isles.
In Iowa, the family gathered at church
to celebrate with a brunch
the first Sunday of Advent.
Father MacDonald announced the attack.
People scurried home to huddle around radios
that crackled with static.
Forty years later,
a fine ash from Mount St. Helens passed
over Grandma’s grave-side service.
And she rests next to her son.
Her mother-of-pearl music box,
the one Bud had given her,
almost kept her company.
But she willed it to me.
I placed it on a shelf by her picture in the living room.
It still plays.
Copyright © Jim Howe | Year Posted 2016
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