“There are no bookshops
in Hawaii,”
wrote my father,
“not that I have seen.
If you’d asked for a
surfboard, or a
flowered shirt, or
Kona coffee,
those I could have got.”
He didn’t mention
ukuleles.
This one’s handsome,
lacquered green and brown.
But ukuleles,
shirts and surfboards —
even books — can
come from anywhere.
Volcanic soil and
gentle weather
are Hawaii,
aren’t they? I’ll have tea.
It’s from Sri Lanka,
someplace even he
has never been.
Sara Bickley lives and writes in Dayton, Ohio.
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3 Responses to “SOUVENIR • by Sara Bickley”
Comments
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May 19th, 2011 at 7:05 am
Smoothly written brush-off to a disadvantaged locale. They just haven’t reached a do-it-yourself status yet. Speaking domestically, did you know Coca Cola has quite a bit of laboratory created caffeine and Pepsi Cola half that amount? Cool technologically created coffee drinks in the morning, not imported. Ah!
May 19th, 2011 at 10:06 am
Woops – just checked the labels. Coke and Pepsi have about the same caffeine.
May 21st, 2011 at 10:36 pm
I enjoyed this. A daughter, I think, musing upon her father’s travels with some sort of resentment, wanting to go where he’d not been.