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Dear Readers:

On November 2, 2008, one day before Barack Obama was elected 44th president of the United States, his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, passed away at the age of 86.

Known affectionately to the future president as “Toot,” she and husband Stanley raised Obama in their Honolulu apartment on Beretania Street for much of his adolescence, and remained influential throughout his life. 

On December 23, 2008, President-elect Obama scattered his grandmother’s ashes at Lana’i Lookout off the southeast coast of Oahu  – the same location he had scattered his mother’s ashes thirteen years earlier.   

Robert Alan Felt’s poem – written nearly 17 years ago – reminds us of that moment, and of the bond shared between grandmother and grandson, the complexity of their relationship and of his loss, and how the moral personal character of leadership is what makes a country great.   

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Joe Maita

Editor

 

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photo via Shutterstock/used by permission of Robert Alan Felt

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The Music of Lana’i Lookout

Inland he has lost a loved one, inland he cries,
he will not beat back the pull of Lana’i Lookout,
he will go to the coastline, go to the rock,
he will say a final goodbye beneath the lookout…

Born of fire and ash this brute rock all around is barren,
windswept, wave-swept, smooth and jagged now.
Here the Pacific pounds blue into light blue into white hurl
of spew and spray. Hawaii, great sweet salted beauty,
warm rainbow-chained islands, blessed private place.

For a second funeral on the sun-splashed ledge, dreaded urn in hand and green lei dangling, exhausted and tremulous he stands beside his sister and takes in the broad ocean pantomime of myriad joy and endless sorrow, on his lips the simple blend of tears and spray. Mournful, he glances down at a foothold corrugated and gray-aged and thinks, “Haughty rock, who allows you to remain? You were putrid waste, unwanted, unloved. Again you mock human time, my family’s time.”

Diminished, eyes closed, returned more than a decade to his mother’s urn outstretched, her kind sibilant voice informs him, “After my scattering I became as a seabird in continuous flight, long-winged, free of bones and organs, opalescent downy perfection, and I am between work and play
awaiting you in the endless place.” A distant shearwater cries out a quick confirmation of her, and a second voice, sonorous and eerily familiar, suggests, “My son, do not miss what is between the troughs, and above and below them, the vicious beauty which cares not for hope and change but most certainly will not disallow it.”

With pounding heart, unmindful of the admonition, and uncertain of the actuality of the voices, he is pulled back muted to the feared boyhood visit of his father, to the obscure gift of wooden figurines of veiled lost time and unearned trust, and, painfully, to the subtle ruse of the slender man’s permanence.

Bewildered, disquieted, in desperate need of a primal strength unstinted, he sees himself at dawn perched among the dew-ridden sisal of Olduvai, and is imbued with pride as the first man standing beholds a golden half sun rise into an unrestrained orange sky streaked with blue and indigo. Barely sustained, drubbed and hobbled by the crush of acceptance, he opens his eyes knowing the time has come to scatter Toot.

Ashes into old ashes, dust upon dust, in the ghastly scintillation half himself poured forth to the ocean surge, the black rock is powdered gray and red petals of plumeria swirl about. A quiet hero mother has rejoined daughter in the vast birthing mix, their voices alternating for him nimbly and self-assured:

…..“I will become ocean waves and briskly moving tide.”
…..“I am the smile of the small puffy cloud.”
…..“I will become the rock you stand on.”
…..“I am sweet midday rain, the verdant frond and flower burst,
…..the gentle quietude of twilight, and the moon in every shape.”
…..“I will continue as your morning star and your north star.”

Whether real or unreal, enamored of the declarations, breath returning, still unaware of a hand held, he looks out in anguished satisfaction upon the shimmering offshore tomb and discerns a flawless tango of the half-formed waves coyly opposed and slyly conjoined, a global dance of despair and comfort, and further, quickly, sees the waves as a foolproof union of imperfection, and also sees the likely truth in his father’s perception.

A firm squeeze from his sister’s hand breaks him away to consider her afflicted thoughts, and in his downward glance their eyes meet, hers glistened with shared loss and sympathy, her cheeks bordered by white lei and teared asymmetrically, and as she closes her eyes slowly, pauses inwardly, and reopens to commence a seaward gaze of somber contemplation, he detects her first faint glimmer of relief and consolation, her face seeming to ponder apt words of gratitude for the mothers’ final resting place together.

He looks out high above her southern line of sight into the limitless cobalt sky, then east suddenly drawn to a sole cloud formation, two large puffed white common clouds lumbering, and a small one trailing, at first glance egg-shaped with a tail, but in scrutiny, unmistakably a long-haired young woman in oblique profile, cheekbones high, an ear capped with pearly gray ball of flower, the mouth a thin blue wedge in motion either half-forlorn or half-smiling. More joyed than vexed to watch the changing image scurry, he becomes unawed simply, certain he will hear his mother’s voice again, awaiting, and as his eyes switch between the cloud and the tango in the jumbled blue beauty, inexorably, like the pull of the rock, like change of ocean tide, he cannot help but hear the dance as recent insistent thoughts of his advisors:

…..“If we cannot staunch the economic bloodletting we are done.”
…..“Chained to the past, the brooding hoods of hate and presumption will
…..see your hard work as their replacement, and fight you every which
…..way.”
…..“We are so stuck with big greedy capitalists hellbent on soaking
…..self-government.”

Overhead a second shearwater circles and brays loudly silencing the advisors, and he is unsurprised when from above his mother’s voice like sun shower mist settles upon him refreshingly, still self-assured overall, but instructive now, her loving tone laced with concern and urgency:

…..“You will not hear from me again for a long time, and there are
…..thoughts I must share with you. Already several times you have
…..pondered the possibility of Toot having knowledge of your election,
…..of which I am ecstatic and so immensely proud of you, but I am not at
…..liberty to speak for her. As you mourn her, and mourn everything that
…..might have been, it is best to put aside the fight between the haves and
…..have nots, and the suspect acts of those elected, and listen all around
…..you to what is most helpful, to what is clean and enduring, our
…..family’s love for you:

…..Hear the ancient love in the Pacific percussion, our ancestors’ rhythm
…..white, black, and brown in the steady cadence crash,
…..Above you hear our modern love heralded in the high-pitched horns of
…..the heedful coast birds hovering,
…..Hear our love tenderly in the whistling silver flutes of the warm silver
…..wind, and resoundingly in the grand piano of the august emboldened
…..sea,
…..Behind you in the acoustical walled crag hall, hear our love in the
…..striated mellow aged-dark cellos, in the big carved double bass, and
…..from the pocked west wall in the playful plinking of nyatitis by your
…..mixed angels gathered,
…..High above you hear my absolute love in the dazzled journeyed harp
…..of the sunlight ray,
…..And from beneath, hear already Toot’s outsized love, tuba-like, steady
…..sturdy love, bound and determined, unabating in big wave bend and
…..boom,
…..Now turn and look to the road above at your family aggrieved,
…..respectful, patient, and hear the love in my grandchildren, dueling
…..clarinets, divine reedy recurrence,
…..Hear the love wholly proud, soulful, keen and resonant in your wife
…..Michelle, priceless violin and love-hewn bow,
…..And alongside you hear the love ingrained in Maya’s baton, today
…..bereaved yet under all confidently creating family score…”

In her pause, bolstered and adored as the cloud nears the horizon, he is bathed in simple correct view and remains eager for her to continue, and as she does, her words as lullaby suspend and linger like sunlit fine dust:

…..“You were not born to fool yourself…
…..Nor were you born to lose yourself…
…..You need not worry, I will not worry…”

And her closing words soft and serene, receding:

…..“For now each day your children read, your children play,
…..To learn their way…”

And last words vanishing like magician’s silk:

…..“With your love and help they will learn their way…”

To his sister’s terse grief-stricken words of the mothers’ togetherness and her fervent wish for peace for them forever, hugging her brokenheartedly he concurs in few painstaking words never to forget the appropriate and cruel press and rustle of the fragrant green and white leis, the knitted life used to illustrate respect for his grandmother’s life on the gray-black heartless rock.

Having helped his sister safely up the first difficult step from the ledge, he returns purposefully and alone to the edge to take a last long look at the sea and think only of Toot, to honor her and her ashes spilled into the exquisite blue marriage of life and death, and if meant, perhaps to hear her voice again, perhaps more fully, more delightedly. And so he stands in loving recall of his grandmother tough as nails, and always there for him, the grandmother who raised him properly; and with the strongest of her many attributes uppermost in mind, of selflessness, hard work, humility, and quiet family devotion, he is, as never before, overwhelmed by the stunning truth of her labors, and more so by her plain grandeur, and once again sees her as arch national treasure along with so many millions of other quiet working Americans, and once again reminds himself she is gone.

Within a deep breath drawn he knows he is today a boxer dazed to canvas, and knows, too, he will pick himself up and cover as he has done after knockdowns past; and in the paused fury of the transition he knows he has done all that could be done to provide a proper aloha for Toot beyond kindness and love, and beyond peace and farewell, a family aloha steeped in reverence and the intense wish she remain content within the great mystical bond of existence.

With the last of his tears dried away he senses he will not hear her voice for the time being, and decides quickly and assuredly he is better off perceiving all the voices as real even if imagined, and with head bowed, thinks how he will shortly leave the lookout and reenter the human world Toot knew well and worked around successfully, a world of near total compromise with good and bad coexisting in all matters, and in which so many coddled fools and uninformed ignorantly tout one side of paradox and totally disregard the other, and knows he will have his work cut out for him. With brief subdued joy, though, he also reminds himself he will soon place his hand on The Railsplitter Bible, unfortunately to lose his last trace of anonymity, but supremely fortunate and proud to pledge an oath to protect and defend The Constitution.

Having suffered this excruciating goodbye to Toot at a historic time demanding great ardor in the Capitol, he will soon regain himself sufficiently and continue to prepare to take the long intricate reins of breathtaking power, all the while conscious of a lingering fear that after good and fair work is done his supporters might well be left bleeding from the glass ceiling he has shattered. But for now, in utter gratitude and love for family remaining, he begins to climb solo up the rock, mostly sure-footed, somewhat light-footed, neither frightened or sad to roundly hope that one brilliantly blue day in paradise his wife and children will hear his silent voice beckon from the island steeple, “Take me to the coastline, take me to the rock, let us share some tears beneath Lana’i Lookout.”

Robert Alan Felt
January 9, 2009

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Click here to see the photo of president-elect Barack Obama scattering his grandmother’s ashes at Lana’i Lookout that inspired this poem

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Robert Alan Felt is a retired law enforcement officer, woodworker, and avid saltwater fisherman living on the south shore of Long Island, New York.

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More poetry on Jerry Jazz Musician

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“The Sound of Becoming,” J.C. Michaels’ winning story in the 70th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest

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