Okinawa Dreaming

By Kathryn Taylor

Okinawa
was the part of the story that never happened.
1969 we never moved there,
let’s just say
mom wouldn’t

Never dad showing us
the Okinawa vistas,
never sushi,
never gardens,
never daughters who grew up
in Japan
with dad

Island dreaming,
I see my jewelry box
on my dresser,
keeping time for 50 years,
flown from Okinawa
during the war years,
a gift from dad

I envision him
shopping for it,
wanting me to know
I am a jewel

A message of love:
time-forged,
heart-stamped

****

Kathryn Taylor is a poet and daughter of a U.S. Naval Academy graduate/U.S. Air Force officer who completed two tours of duty in Vietnam. Kathryn has worked as a psychiatric nurse practitioner at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center as well as with veterans in community mental health centers. During the last months of her father’s terminal illness, her poetry writing served as a miraculous and healing gift. Currently she facilitates poetry workshops.