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 bird
kept in your cage of love. You called me Sparrow but preferred
an 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 others
you craved the fruit
so much, you overlooked
the crimson blossoms wounded by worms and winds. You could not imagine
some of them would swell
into 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 son
to 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-bye
to my son again, not until
he graduates from Parkview High.
The Donkey
Mama, do you remember the donkey
who 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 him
and 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 translucency
are 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 yard
all the noise ceases in our house.
I dare not raise my voice
to tell my family in the kitchen
that we have a little visitor,
a portly guy in a brown coat.
If he hears any sound in here
he'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 sure
his 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 idea
we celebrate a day in his name.
I keep my face back from the window
so he can enjoy a quiet meal,
or even a sunbath as
he often does back home.
Whenever he's here
my 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 earthworm
and 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 wounds
and even gave me a pill before
they put me back into the lake.
Now I'm going to rejoin my tribe
and tackle their new chief.
First they should know I'm still alive-
ka, keck, quack.
Nan, a Fantasizing Husband
I dream of becoming an idle Nan, in whose calendar all days are blank. Don't blame me if I am such a man
who goes to ball games as a major fan
and whose job is to draw cash from the bank.
I dream of becoming an idle Nan.
Scientists, artists, statesmen do what they can, but I would have my good fortune to thank. Don't scold me if I am such a man.
Trouble will always come if you have a plan
to attack front and flank.
I dream of becoming an idle Nan –
in the morning I'll eat omelet with ham; if it's fine, I will roam the riverbank. Don't pinch me if I am such a man!
Time will crush everything into one span. Why strive for money, power, fame, and rank? I dream of becoming an idle Nan. Don't kill me if I am such a man!
A Father's Blues
Again I'm back at square one, where every street says "Dead End." I thought my daughter, unborn yet, would show me an outlet.
Again I'm back at square one
to face an empty yard where a house once stood.
My child was a vision I lost myself in.
If only I had unlearned selfish parenthood.
Again I'm back at square one, holding a little casket I cannot inter. My child died before she grew a lung. If only I knew where they dumped her.
Again I'm back at square one,
where a man has to restart alone.
Let me unsee my daughter's twinkling pulse
so I can search my soul for a milestone.