August Poetry Well features Vashon’s current poet laureate
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, August 3, 2016
The Poetry Well is a monthly column that showcases island poetry. This month includes a poem by current Vashon Poet Laureate Lonny Kaneko.
SHANGHAI KITTENS
The kitties litter the campus with their bodies,
Reclining like little emperors on the warm stones
We step around. They eye us with disdain, ignore
The stray student refugees from small farm towns
Who reach out to fondle their ears and strum
Fingers through their ribs. The kittens wait
For others, who spread food from little bags
At their feet. These lords of the lawn stretch
In the morning smog, and disappear in the Shanghai
Rain. At night they appear in small groups,
The white ones glowing under the trees,
And painted tan kittens, keeping warm
On the hoods of cars or sometimes under them.
Shangri-La is a hotel we can visit, and this place
These animals live; their summer-long lives
Are timeless moments where any morning can begin
With a white kitten stretched on the drive, motionless
Its mouth caught in smile, blood clotted in its ears.
Over the past three years, Lonny Kaneko has spent the equivalent of almost two-thirds of a year in Shanghai, China’s most cosmopolitan city. It is the largest city proper in the world, with a population of more than 24 million and a multitude of city centers, each of which would dwarf Seattle. Kaneko says day-to-day living in Shanghai feels no different than living in any large American city; its restaurants, malls, hotels and other tourist destinations create an almost perfect city, even though it is among the most expensive.
While on the surface Shanghai is a beautiful place to live, Kaneko said, on occasion one can briefly see that life is far from perfect for the invisible multitudes who struggle through life.
