[lit-ideas] Re: Sunday Poem

After several trips, the firemen and the paramedics know the dog, the house,
the all of where she lives, but little of who she is.
When Tina Su says her racket isn't "welcoming" the ball,
it's not for lack of will or skill at all.
At eighty she told people to buy United stock
when it fell below a dollar, "Double your money is good."
That's Tina Su. 

Tina can be coaxed into brief brush stroke tales of Chaing Kai-Shek, or
Peking before Mao.  She leaves lots out because she left a lot behind.
I know she evaded several armies' advances and somehow landed in Hong Kong,
where she found a new husband, one with a good job in banking, and then,
like my grandfather--who had more cause-- she took up lawn bowls.
She has a trophy.
Her daughter's schooling consisted of memorizing British monarchs, English
grammar, parlaying Francsays, and a general introduction to the geography of
"the Far East."  

Tina and Sampson made money.  In old age they came to America.  He died.
Now she tends her grandaughter's fish, drives here and there, takes tennis
lessons, occasionally partners me in doubles, waits to be reunited with him.

On Friday night here came sudden chest pain again, followed by a trip to the
E.R., and so to the ICU.
She has a hole in her aorta, a tear.  This is not good.
Yesterday she looked her visitors in the eye and asked, "Everyone else can
die, why not me?"
She has no welcome for death.

David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon


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