Zahdi Dates and Poppies A Warrior Play

Zahdi Dates and Poppies: A Warrior Play Husband, a Marine fighter pilot A Wife Marksman Insurgent Chorus (Entrance of Wife, singing as she crosses the stage.) Wife: California poppies hold tight fists at dawn. Gold and orange poppies clench like fists at dawn, but open petals of flame in the sun’s warmth. [Jitori] Chorus: California poppies hold tight fists at dawn, but open petals of flame in the sun’s warmth. (The koken throws her a paper airplane. She picks it up, then kneels at waki pillar and carefully, slowly begins to unfold the paper. She raises it and begins to read as the Husband enters and speaks the letter.) Husband: Your poem about poppies is beautiful. Thank you. I’m sorry I haven’t written in so long. Please know that I love your daily letters. We’ve been… busy here. I guess I’ve flown over every grain of sand in Iraq’s desert several times now, each just as dry and hot as the next. (Pause.) I have good news. I’ll be returning with the first group of Marines, advance party. (Wife raises her face, then stands, raises the letter [shikake], and steps back [hirake], bringing the letter closer to her chest. She raises the letter and looks down to begin reading again.) I’ll have to work to prepare for the squadron’s return. But I’ll be home. Chorus: Home was a flower bouquet they gathered with soft hands walking near a wave-beaten shore. Now drums beat a march, and home is just a flag on a flat paper map. (Wife slowly folds the letter, then walks in a wide circle around the stage. She faces forward slowly folds the letter, tries to place it in her skirt. At “Wreaths,” the letter falls, other folded letters may fall as well. She kneels, carefully gathers them again. Paper flowers cut her hands. Wreaths of unanswered letters, lie near the love she dreamed. Nightmares share her bed. Husband: Leaving for war was tough. But returning is… I don’t know what I’ve become (beginning to walk toward Wife), what I could possibly say. (He stops and turns away.) You seem as closed to me as the poppies before the sun rises. Come with me to the beach. (Wife rises.) We’ll walk until the sun warms us, until the poppies open. (He turns and begins walking.) Wife: (Watching him walk away.) He walks more deeply in the ground now. (Turning to face the audience.) And sometimes when he speaks to me, he seems to be talking to someone else – or to both of us. I don’t say much then…. I have very little to say. [Michiyuki] Husband: Sand without flowers, it is the blank in my mind, smoke without bullet, when I think of what I’ve done. Surviving was not thinking, and it was too easy, not to think of politics, just missions with blanks over sand. But you, the one (Faces Wife.) who counts the flowers, waits for poppies to open, raise your face, not blank, to the morning sun. Do you demand I count (Takes out airplane and holds it in his hand as he walks.) each bomb? Carry the burden, of desert flaming, of houses struck like matches? I bombed IED’s, a dozen burnt-out buildings, flew overwatch when our friend was shot down, then blew up the wreckage. I did not kill there. [Tsukizerifu] Husband: But there is one bomb, I cannot count. It fell somewhere near Zaidon. (Entrance of Marksman.) [Nanori] Marksman: So many beaches and deserts turned to war zones. Mark the difference, or try, in the speed of sand blowing from your hand. Bullets, like sand, shift in wind. Reading the mirage, determine the wind drift, read illusions to shoot. Husband: I can’t even take a morning walk without encountering another Marine. His medal means he was injured in the war. And the patch says he’s a Marksman. [Mondo] Marksman: Good morning Sir. Husband: Good morning. You were in Iraq? Marksman: Yes Sir. Second marine division, Al Anbar Province. Husband: I flew air support for you there. You just got back, then? Marksman: No Sir, I got to go home early and spend some time on the family farm in Iowa. Took a bullet near Zaidon [Kakeai] Husband: I’m sorry to hear that. How are you doing? Marksman: I’m walking, Sir, thanks to your jets. We called you angels. Husband: Call sign Covey, flying over Zaidon. Marksman: Covey’s angel saved me. We were pinned north of Zaidon. Husband: Insurgent stronghold. Marksman: Spent two days under fire. Husband: No water, Marksman and I was hit. Husband: Got casualty. [Uta] Husband: I was flying overhead, but could not bomb without sure coordinates, couldn’t risk civilian lives. Finally, the insurgents fired. I got my visual launched the missile. I didn’t know if I hit the house. Marksman: You shot true and saved my life. Intell found fourteen bodies in the house you bombed. All men, aged sixteen to thirty, standard for insurgents, no women, no children, so no civilians, we think. Must feel good to know you did your job, saved Marines. Must feel like power. Thank you, sir. (Marksman exits.) [Uta] Husband: I left the desert feeling blank as the sand. The taste of power cancelled by the chill of death. They told me to go, I went. I tried not to think, but hoped I could tell my wife I had not killed. Chorus: (Husband dances kakeri.) He saved the marine, but killed fourteen. The blank in his mind, to think of what he’s done. Beds of poppies say nothing, take the beach, explode from the sand, shake struck matches. (Musical interlude. Pantomime: Wife approaches where he kneels, then turns back. He crushes one of the paper airplanes and rises as if to go to her. Turns away and walks toward corner. She goes to center and picks up the second airplane and turns as if to take it to him… then folds it into her shawl/scarf and kneels behind him during the following lines. Flowers close their petals as the sun sets. Husband and wife leave the beach and return to a bed often troubled by dreams. Sleep without rest, smoke without bullet, the haunted sleep of the soldier. (Husband and wife kneel at waki pillar in sleep position. Insurgent enters, delivers issei from hashigakari.) [Issei] Insurgent: Across the world, sand looks like a warm-skinned body, a woman resting. Poppies are her jewels here, fruit dates in Iraq. I once fed her Zahdi dates from my father’s fields. The sand blows against a face, not my own: a mask. [Sashi] Insurgent: I was the son of a farmer in Duluiyah. Your tanks and bombs destroyed our ancient orchards. Palm fronds fell like open hands to the earth. It broke my father. My wife was hungry. I could not find work. You killed me on a rooftop in Zaidon. (Husband rises as Insurgent moves to the stage.) [Kotoba] Husband: Have you come for revenge? Insurgent: Revenge, repentance are just a mirage. You have dreamed me here. Husband: I have nothing to repent I was doing my job. [Uta] Insurgent: Learn to read the mirage before you fire. Determine the bullet’s wind drift by waves of light over sand. Read illusions to shoot. [Kuri] Chorus: We were both paid to kill, to carry that burden. In war, life has always been cheap, soldiers cheaply paid to die. [Chunori – Tsuyogin] Insurgent: The day I died in Zaidon, Chorus: (Insurgent and husband perform battle dance.) I hid behind a palm stump to shoot your soldiers. Six fell, their blood pooled like dates near the pitted Zaidon road. Seven of us ambushed your troops joined others in a house. They’d been days under fire. Low ammunition. No water, and I was hit. We were waiting for your bombs, heard the jets above. We loaded our last rounds, blasted the house. (Insurgent kneels center; husband kneels back left.) [Chunori - Yowagin] Insurgent: As I heard the jet diving, I thought of my wife Chorus: As I heard the jet diving, (Wife rises, and wraps a veil around her head to become I thought of my wife the wife of the insurgent in this dance.) standing in a breeze blowing down from the date palms. Veil white as cheese beside her honey-touched hand, brown eyes, date seeds. Whispering a poem: Wife: “Had I told the sea what I felt for you, It would have left its shores…shells… And followed me.” [“In The Summer,” Nizar Qabbani, Iraqi poet] Insurgent: And I knew I could not follow, after what I had become. [Tsuyogin] The first explosion, Chorus: The first explosion, another, then the date palms snapped shut as fists over charred Zahdi dates. Each leaf was pried back to expose my hate, failure, my life, wasted fruit, flaming (Wife turns and winds veil around her head again.) around the pit. Then I heard my wife calling, Insurgent: “I have told the sand what I felt for you./ Wife: I told the sand what I felt for you. Insurgent and Wife: My love it’s just a mirage, waves of light over sand, take my hand, follow me.” Chorus: If he could love he could turn away from the flames. Insurgent: I turned away from the flames. [Yowagin] She wants me to say (She turns to him and repeats first set of kata.) (Turns to face her.) Chorus: She wants me to say I forgive you, all fourteen were insurgents age sixteen to thirty. [Musical break] Another wife wakes another dreaming soldier, takes him, in her arms. Insurgent: I release you. Chorus: But, certain as the poppies will close tonight, you will carry me with you all your life, feel it tighten as the knot of dried Zahdi dates, but at dawn her petals open. (Wife rises and walks to Husband; they walk forward together; he kneels beside insurgent.) (Insurgent rises and walks toward exit but turns back as the final lines are sung.) (Wife places the veil around Husband’s shoulders as song ends. Insurgent stamps the final beat.)