AARON CAYCEDO-KIMURA on

Lawson Fusao Inada
Healing Gila
           
            for The People
 
The people don't mention it much.
It goes without saying,
it stays without saying--
 
that concentration camp
on their reservation.
 
And they avoid that massive site
as they avoid contamination--
 
that massive void
punctuated by crusted nails,
punctured pipes, crumbled
failings of foundations . . .
 
What else is there to say?
 
This was a lush land once,
graced by a gifted people
gifted with the wisdom
of rivers, seasons, irrigation.
 
The waters went flowing
through a network of canals
in the delicate workings
of balances and health . . .
 
What else is there to say?
 
Then came the nation.
Then came the death.
 
Then came the desert.
Then came the camp.
 
But the desert is not deserted.
It goes without saying,
it stays without saying--
 
wind, spirits, tumbleweeds, pain.

Aaron Caycedo-Kimura is a writer and visual artist. He is the author of two poetry collections: Ubasute, which won the 2020 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Competition, and the full-length collection Common Grace, forthcoming from Beacon Press in October 2022. His honors include a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship in Poetry, a St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Award in Literature, and nominations for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best New Poets anthologies. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry Daily, RHINO, Pirene’s Fountain, Iamb, upstreet, Verse Daily, DMQ Review, Poet Lore, The Night Heron Barks, and elsewhere. He currently serves as a member of the Slapering Hol Press Advisory Committee and as a reader for Beloit Poetry Journal. Aaron earned his MFA in creative writing from Boston University and is also the author and illustrator of Text, Don’t Call: An Illustrated Guide to the Introverted Life (TarcherPerigee, 2017).