Robert Louis Stevenson (2012 Poem In Your Pocket)

The dapper Japanese tourist was
walking on the sidewalk
when death swished by him
and stopped short of his grave.

The dude must have felt the air rush by
as the hanging palm frond dropped
from the sky that close to his head,

a hefty stalk made deadlier by
the towering height from which it shed
halting his stride and blocking his path.

Just one step forward a half-second sooner
and his vacation in Hawaii might have ended.

His face strained for composure but I
could see the veiled terror move
across his orbs, glazing them over,
his skin blanching whiter,
still he kept it together his look
now pensive, replaying the grisly scene
with his nerves shredded. I saw

that his near miss was mine also,
and I wondered which saint he prayed to.

G. M. LaRiviere has lived in NYC, L.A., Monterey, and Japan as well as in Hawaii, her home. Her poems, which have won awards in poetry competitions, are mainly Hawaii poems. Late in life, after her father's death, LaRiviere learned of their descent from a samurai family. Coincidentally, research on a YA samurai novel which she had put on hold has been spurred on by this knowledge. Her completed ethnic novel, FROM NEW YORK TO WEST TOLUCA LAKE VIA HAWAII, took ten years to write. Look for an excerpt to be published in the forthcoming 2014 NWA Honolulu Chapter's anthology.