Hideko Sueoka-II

Where is my home?

 

II  Bruce Davidson: South Wales 1965

     (Born in the United States of America)

 
 

   A sphere before evening from the region

   where nobody strolls, the dour boy will go to,

   encompassed by plume, soot, and adverse dust

   spelt with coal, heat, and carbon dioxide.

 
 

   He, wearing glasses, carries his teddy bear

   and baby doll as dead bodies to be

   ensconced into a concealed store, they were

   quite tame denizens of his colony

 
 

   away from where weary colliers dig the earth.

   The captured view is within a stone’s throw

   from us; easy to see coke dump, oak death,

   and asthma due to coal-dirty air with flow

 
 

   of noise. The sphere, a sort of Arcadia

   he’s dreamt of and sought on his own at Rhondda.

 
 

 *** Rhondda — Previous coal mining place in Wales