A Poem: Marsilani, original version

Following is the original version of the "Marsilani" poem intended to encapsulate the collection of short stories. Clumsy, almost better as prose.

Mars-ilani
“Mililani” means “Look Up”
(“Look Skyward,” to be poetic).
For the lower to middle class suburbanites who moved here in the late 60's,
How apt:
Hope,
Look up,
And you too can someday reach the stars.

Mililani’s symbol is the horseshoe
(a three-colored rainbow, to be poetic),
a bridge of dreams,
the embrace of a community,
etc., etc., etc.

I was born and raised in Mililani.
And, like the fruit of a tired tree,
Fell and returned here,
Laying roots in its rusty soil.

Now,
When I look upon my town’s symbol,
I see neither a bridge nor an embrace.

I see the inevitable path of middle class life.

For if it is a rainbow,
it is on the verge of collapsing in on itself,
teetering unsteady
on one invisible pot of gold.

And if it is a horseshoe,
then it is a horseshoe magnet,
drawing the very iron in my blood back
to join the rust of its soil.

If an embrace,
then it holds me
like an umbilical culdesac noose.*

“Mililani” means “Look Up.”

But if you look down,
you may see
ancient tectonic rifts
buckling the pavement.
Look around, and find,
not commonality,
but indifference.
Alienation, a constant companion,
and aliens, sometimes acquaintances.

“Mililani” means “Look Up.”
But all I see
through haze of street lamp and telescopic lens
is a glass mirrored ceiling.

Where my reflection should be standing
in the midst of my hometown,
I only see Mars:
blood soiled,
canal scarred,
rumored of life,
certain of war;

And a Martian,
trying to find a way
to where I’m
supposed to be,
trying to discover
intelligent life.

Thus it is that I dub thee
“Mars-ilani”
town of past futures
and futures passed,
where aliens
shy of escape velocity
find
home
away from home.


* Culdesacs, the “leaves” (if not the flowers) of suburban development, are banned in some modern communities because of the high incidence of a specific kind of “freak accident”: parents unsuspectingly backing over their toddler children, whom they left to play unsupervised in supposed “safety.” An apt symbol for suburban life in general, where “[apparently] nothing ever happens.”
Mililani’s symbol, by the way, resembles a culdesac. Read the story “Culdesacs: Suburban Dream or Dead End” by John Nielsen in the June 7th 2006 broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition.”

[There was also some interview on November 3rd, with an author, something Foley? About suburbia. Noted it, but can't remember currently.]