I pity those who love security and unity.They're content to live in cellars wherefood and drinks are provided for them.Their lungs are unused to fresh airand their eyes bleary in sunlight.They believe the worst lifeis better than a timely death.Their heaven is a banquet table.Their salvation depends on a powerful man.
Spring
In the late afternoon a chorus of birds driftsand sways a boat brimming with hopes,forgotten but still floating in the bay.If your heart is full of longing fora distant trip, it's time to go.You must set out alone-expect no company but stars.
In the early twilight golden clouds billow, suggesting a harvest, remote yet plausible. Perhaps your soul is suddenly seized by a melody that brings back a promise never fulfilled, or a love that blossoms only in thought, or a house, partly built, abandoned…
If you want to sing, sing clearly.Let grief embolden your song.
A Change
You didn't come. I was there alone watching drenched dragonflies cling to the grapes under your trellis, listening to a flute that trilled away in the shuttered nursery.
Alone I stood in the rain, crooningto the wind, and let my songsbe carried off by the wingsthat still cleaved the hazy evening.I saw my words fall on a mountainsidewhere trees and grass were dying.
Now and againyour little gate would waveas if to say "Go away."
Afterward, weaned from love and sick of everything, I thought I would stop singing. Yet words lined up, kept coming, though in my voice I heard a different ring.
A Love Bird
How I would like to be a birdkept in your cage of love. You called me Sparrow but preferredan eagle or a dove.
You shooed me off your cozy eaves and made me use my wings.How I cried for fear, for relief. You merely said "Poor thing."
Across oceans and continents I've traveled, wrestling winds.My heart, homesick, often regrets my strong and spacious wings.
I've lost my sparrow's melody and cannot find your house.Many times you must have seen me as one born in the clouds.
Pomegranates
Another rain will burst them- full of teeth, they will grin through the tiny leaves
that used to conceal their cheeks. I'll take a photo of my pomegranates for you, the only person
I care to show. Like othersyou craved the fruitso much, you overlooked
the crimson blossoms wounded by worms and winds. You could not imagine
some of them would swellinto such heavy pride.I can tell you, they are sour.
A Good-bye in January 1987
"All aboard!" cried the train attendant.My father was holding my three-year-old sonto watch me leaving for another continent.
"Good-bye, Taotao." I waved, but my child was silent staring at me with a sullen face,
his tears trickling down.If only I could have brought him along!The wheels hissed, about
to grind. "No good-bye,"he cried finally, "no good-bye, Mama."I forced a smile, then climbed
the ladder, stabbed by pain.The village platform began to fall away,blurred, and disappeared in the plain.
Since then his tears, mingled with mine, have often soaked my bad dreams, although he did join me in '89.
I swear I'll never say good-byeto my son again, not untilhe graduates from Parkview High.
The Donkey
Mama, do you remember the donkeywho collapsed on the street that afternoon?And the overturned cart, its wheel still moving,
mussels and clams scattered in heaps all around? He lay in a ditch, his belly sweating, heaving, while blood flowed from his mouth.
The old one-eyed driver was kicking himand yelling, "Get up, you beast!"Only a long ear twitched, as if to say "I'm trying."
I swear, he was too tired to get on his feet. Unlike a horse playing sick, he was too weak to pretend.
Mama, I can still see that mountain of seafood, the driver standing on it and cracking his whip.
My Doves
All night long I hear my doves cooing to tell me there's a snowstorm gathering. Their feathers, once intensely white, are gray and tattered, though the whistles I tied to them eleven years ago still scatter notes of brass when they fly.
They tremble a little from cold.Their short bills having lost the jadelike translucencyare more fragile than before.
Who feeds them now?Under whose eaves is their cote?Do they still go to the aspen grove to look for worms?Do the cats still attack them and steal their young?
Time and again they seem to cry, "Nan, Nan, come and take us away." They make my morning blue, bluer than a freezing dusk.
All day long I see the shadows of their wings flitting about- through my lawn, along the asphalt, across the walls of the dining hall, on the kitchen floor, around my wok…
Groundhog Hour
As the groundhog enters our yardall the noise ceases in our house.I dare not raise my voiceto tell my family in the kitchenthat we have a little visitor,a portly guy in a brown coat.If he hears any sound in herehe'll run away, rocking his ample rump.
He stands up on his hind feet,clasps his hands below his ursine face,and looks right then left as if to make surehis shadow hasn't followed him.Soon he roams the grass casually,sampling our clover and alfalfa,catching an insect or snail.He never jumps like his cousin the squirrel.
How can I tell him he's always welcome?A humble guest, he has no ideawe celebrate a day in his name.I keep my face back from the windowso he can enjoy a quiet meal,or even a sunbath ashe often does back home.
Whenever he's heremy winter shrinks, green-faced.
The Drake
Oh, what human bastard threw the lines and hooks into the lake? Instead of a fish they caught me, slashed my tongue, mangled my wings. All my ducks thought I was finished and left me to die on this shore. I know they're fighting over my post, their voices shrilling in the woods- ka, keck, quack.
Oh, even a god dies alone.I won't complain or sob,although my heart is sore,gripped by numbing sleep.I must remain mute like an earthwormand dense like a tree.If only I could rise and swim again,again commanding my clan-ka, keck, quack.
Oh, how can I thank the Wus enough?They cut the lines and dislodged the hooks.They cleaned the maggots off my woundsand even gave me a pill beforethey put me back into the lake.Now I'm going to rejoin my tribeand tackle their new chief.First they should know I'm still alive-ka, keck, quack.