I just learned of the death of my cousin, local poet, novelist, and lawyer Michael McPherson.
He died this week at his home in Waimea on the Big Island.
Our grandmothers were sisters. Does that make us second cousins?
That’s Michael, at the left in this photo, listening to my mother at a family gathering back in 2006, as other McPherson cousins listen in. We were both born in 1947, so this one feels close to home.
Here are a few of Michael’s poems and a brief biography featured in a collection of poetry by lawyers.
You can find his books in places selling things local. “Rivers of the Sun“, a novel. “All those Summers“, a book of surfing memories. “Singing with the Owls“, his first book of poems from back in 1982. Lots more poems floating around in various anthologies.
Ghosts of Boat Day
for P.C.
Tiptoed at the rail
to watch Hawaiian boys
swim that narrow passage
there between Pier One
and massive steel bulk
curve of mighty Lurline,
queen of this broad Pacific
awash in colored garlands
twang of slack key guitars
and Hawaiian pedal beckon,
ukuleles sway lovely hula hands
and hips of wishes solemn glide
where those brave boys dive
for coins shining through
murky diesel fumes rolling
off this ocean like smoke.
I might have been ten,
my brother a toddler then
Bishop Street’s Alexander Young
Hotel’s famous pastry shop
cherry tarts custard to crust
royal creme of Honolulu
and those open flower stands
of bustling Maunakea Street
where our mother Aileen
gathered wedding supplies
round downtown chatter
of wide sunlit afternoons.
My father then mobbed up
with an Irish cop from Kalihi
later told his teenage son a day
would come the Governor
be not born of these islands,
but what wisdom its reach
to foretell a Jewish lesbian
lay as yet flung far at sea.
How unlikely then also these fifty
and some odd years beyond
each alone embarks upon a cause
to find parking at Aloha Tower
this Saturday night in holiday season
here indeed you feel free,
so we sit amid this human throng
and laugh what stray wraiths we may be.
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Very sorry to hear this news. _Singing with the Owls_ was a gorgeous book of poems; many of his more recent poems were very fine, as well, bittersweet, nostalgic. Michael and his work will be missed.
Auwe, this is sad news. I admired Michael’s directness, humor, wit; he called it like he saw it. His work, including the novel, never got the attention it deserved.
Am so sorry for your familys and the worlds loss-sounds as if a good man has gone home—
Sad news. I haven’t seen Mikey in almost ten years, but he was always engaged with importants ideas and eager to discuss them with anyone, without any of the intellectual elitism one might expect from a lawyer poet. He was always kind to me and i’ll remember him well.
Aloha,
I’m John Adrian’s granddaughter. My dad is James K. or aka Kimo. Not sure what that makes us, but I believe we are family!
Nice to see that picture of Aunty Hinano and Aunty Pam. Sorry to hear about Uncle Michael’s passing a few years ago. We were happy to attend his book signing of “All Those Summers” …I believe that’s the title…
A hui hou…
We visited with Aunty Aileen a couple times in her little house in Waimea. Her mother & my Dad’s mother were first cousins. I called Michael years ago, who I had not met, and he was gracious enough to make time to have lunch with me to discuss a legal career in Hawaii. I was sad to hear when he and his mom passed but grateful to have known them. They showed a lot of aloha for ohana! Aloha, Lehua Holck Neilson