Albert Saijo

For Albert Saijo 2/4/26-6/3/11

Learned today, June 6th, of Albert Saijo’s passing, today,

I recall as I write the number, my father’s birthday

—gone at 48, well over forty years ago—

and what I remember most now

is the beauty of the day

we buried him.

Out-right resistance was not an option for the son of a man

of his time and experience—a bond shared with most

of my boyhood friends—expectations were as hard

and fast as our fathers’ hands, neither of which

could be avoided, both of which

had long, long reach.

Sublimated resistance truncates and so carried and digested,

festered and reflected upon over time and over time

released—character.

The city of Amsterdam, I’ve learned, began with a single canal,

a circle, like a stone in a pond.

Nanao Sakaki passed last year, earth wanderer, witness to the final planes

of the Pacific Theater, sometime poet whose intended reach

was the universe, once said a circle big enough to sit in

and to sing, is enough.

And now poet Albert Saijo, having encountered them both only within

the circles of their poems—not more than enough, but enough.

Saijo began in camps reserved for citizens of the wrong color, lived

later solitary years at the edge of an active volcano,

so as to not take up too much room,

saying, all we can do is something with our personal lives,

something “to take energy away

from the madness.”