Backyard Fruit
Polaroid Photo Paintings by Noreen Rei Fukumori
Just before the winter solstice, my brother, sister, and I let go of the simple wood-framed house we had called home for forty years. It took a year to empty the house of its furniture and layers of accumulated memories. The process brought to light the true, steady presence of an extended family of fruit trees in the backyard. I remembered my dad’s annual ritual of pruning and trying out new grafts on the apple tree, or when my parents planted the persimmon tree to replace an old oak. Looking back, Dad’s tending the trees was his way of grounding life—healing, bridging the past with the present.
Golden Delicious
My father, Taro Fukumori, often recalled that as a boy he felt more comfortable getting his hands dirty tilling fields than sitting in a classroom. He and his four siblings were raised as tenant farmers, cultivating vegetables and a pear orchard in central California. When Taro was sixteen, his father unexpectedly died. A year later Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and on February 19, 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the evacuation of Japanese Americans to internment camps. Taro’s family was given two weeks to pack one suitcase, forced to leave everything else behind. When they arrived at the Tule Lake internment camp, they learned that their house had been torched and burned down.
Hachiya Kaki
When the war ended, the family splintered off to seek employment. Taro moved to the Central Valley to find seasonal work as a farm laborer, his sisters found office jobs, and his mother worked as a housekeeper. By 1948, my father was drafted to serve in the U.S. military and had met my mother at a Sadie Hawkins dance. He attended trade school on the GI bill, married my mother in 1953, and became an engine inspector for United Airlines. He settled our family in Albany, California, establishing roots with a home and orchard of his own.
Pears
I savored that last season in my family home. The cherry plum, persimmon, fig, lemon, apple, and pear trees had grown taller, fuller, and more expressive over the years—a seasonal barometer, unconditionally yielding the byproduct of life for us to consume or compost. Sensation and reflection brought back fond memories with the realization that this tiny orchard was indeed a big part of my being; documenting the fruit has become my personal almanac. Framing a facet of nature through the camera lens is an expression of the color and flavors of childhood, of home-sweet-home, nature and human nature—a means of reconciling and revering life’s cycles.
Contributors
Many talented individuals are featured in the West Marin Review. Please click below for this volume’s contributors.
- FRONT COVER
- Noreen Rei Fukumori Fuyu Kaki
- BACK COVER
- Julia Edith Rigby Tomales Calf
- PROSE
- Blair Fuller Grand Central Station
- J. C. Stock Bird Standing on Water
- Rick Lyttle Unorganized Sports
- Vicki DeArmon A Mother’s No
- Stephanie E. Dickinson Emily and the Dynamite
- Alvin Duskin The Red Arrow
- Elaine Elinson Bringing the Grape Boycott to England
- Rick Bass The Prudent Man
- Molly Katzman When It Stops Raining We Sleep Beneath the Stars
- Rosaleen Bertolino The Burned Hill
- G. David Miller Our Family Farm
- Claire Peaslee Colophon
- POETRY
- Jody Farrell Ode to the First Blackberry of Summer
- Keith Ekiss Miss Maria’s New Dress
- Pamela Manché Pearce Ocean View, Hotel Nacional de Cuba
- Anuja Mendiratta Brasil Vignettes
- Roy Mash Revolving Sunglass Display
- Hiroki Coyle The Treasure
- Gerardo Loza Where I’m From
- Heather Quinn Mindspill: a Paradelle
- Agnes Wolohan von Burkleo Now I Am an Old Woman
- Dave Seter Mission Blues
- Gina Cloud night poem
- Dale Pendell Sunset
- Larry Ruth South Fork of the Kings River
- Cathryn Shea The Chill of Grace
- Claire Blotter California Wild Flower Tonic
- Anna Gold “Will You Miss This?”
- Mary Winegarden Untitled
- ART + ARTIFACT
- Ashley Teodoro Seal
- Adam Shemper On the Day of Our Engagement, Motel Inverness Boardwalk, Tomales Bay
- Jenifer Kent Wave and Transit
- Mariana Smith The Seed of an Idea
- Nancy Stein Wave 43
- Rebecca Czapnik So Little, So Much
- Brooke Holve mtlaugwalkcut_5
- Sophia Dixon Dillo Appearance I and Appearance III
- Noreen Rei Fukumori Backyard Fruit
- Gabriel Schillinger-Hyman Marine Study, Chimney Rock
- Topaze “t.c.” Moore Bestiary #1 and Quagga Stallion and Foal
- Sherri Paul The Treasure Hunter
- Patricia Thomas Fog
- Anne Faught URSA
- Julia Edith Rigby Tomales Calf
- Jacqueline Mallegni Haiku
- Vincent Dion Untitled #37
- Sage Rossman Two Trees
- Shirley Salzman Periodic Art of the Elements
- Theodora Varnay Jones CP-X
- Susan Putnam Untitled #244
- Eileen Puppo Seasonal Shock
- Wendy Schwartz Rich Readimix
- Bob Kubik Morning Coffee
- Adah Pinchuk Hyman Estero in Blue and Tomales Bay, Low Tide
- Kathleen Goodwin Homage to the Half Tree
- Andrew Thompson Warning: Bees
- Charles Eckart View from the Bicycle
- Caitlin McCaffrey Domed Nest with Pantry Chambers
- Catherine J. Richardson Caspian
- D. L. Woerner Joan’s Falcon
- Lisa Piazza Leaf #3
- Lorraine Almeida Growth in the Desert
- Isis Hockenos We, the Milked III
- Jon Langdon Asters in Starlight
- Thomas D. Joseph Tennessee Valley Beach
- Mark Ropers Point Lobos