I moved country, continent, hemisphere
I fit my life into a suitcase
I came naked
I will go naked
It is one suitcase too much
memory fades
happy or sad
we live momentarily
eventually memory loss
what do I hold dearly
will I recognise
the you and me once been
in the shadowbox
chained around my neck
the picture will be so blur
in my failing mind
the shadow box will be so worn out
by the fiddle of my fingers
you perhaps will be long gone
with my smile imprinted to
your soul
a lone bluebird
glides across the prairie
flapping his vibrant wings
to survey his love
“Touch your lips with a magic kiss
And you’ll be a bluebird too,
And you’ll know what love can do”
will love bring you to me
my northern bluebird
if I walk about in the plains
leaving sparse scent trails
will you land on my shoulder
touch my lips with a magic kiss
and will I be a bluebird too,
and we’ll know what love can do
How many times have you picked up
my suitcase from the airport carousel?
They are exactly the times we spent
our sweet honeymoons.
When they ended, we returned to our independent lives.
People comes and goes like a revolving door.
Not one distracts us from each other
for each journey ends
each planning for another honeymoon starts.
The circle of life manifests in our love
like children enjoy the merry-go-round.
Cinnamon kisses are sweet at dawn
after an exotic night play
The remnant of the tangled souls
swirls like earthy warm smoke
infuses the haze cool morning
A farm girl decided to survive in a big city.
She tried all decent work to bring in income
to pay for their daughter’s education,
so she would not need to follow her footsteps.
She sold rubber sandals in the market.
She mixed cement, dug trenches
and laid bricks on construction sites.
She is 5 feet tall in sun tanned skin.
She rode on a 28 inch wheel bicycle
carrying an ice box filled with ice blocks.
She waited outside her daughter’s school
in many scorching summer afternoons.
Children swamped out the school gate
at the sound of the bell.
That was the best time of her sales.
Children were reaching their hands high
to pay for the ice blocks.
It looked like a vigorous bidding scene.
She barely kept up to collect the coins
while giving out the ice blocks.
Yet her eyes always spotted her little girl
once she appeared outside the school gate.
She reached into the bottom right corner of the ice box
to retrieve the special perfectly frozen vanilla ice block,
handing it to her daughter standing on the sideline.
She never kept any eye contact though,
for the fear of the children would laugh at
her little girl has a mother working as a petty street vendor.
She received great education opportunities
from her mother’s hard labour and vision.
Every time she sucks on a vanilla ice block,
her mother’s sun tanned forehead
soaked with hot summer sweat
comes into her mind.
The melting ice block,
her melting heart,
shows up as streams of tears
she is too proud to hold back.
– dedicated to my mother
She
an only child grew up with cats
a city girl came from the subtropical rain
with lavender scent among the dragon ferns
He
a lone man curled up on a couch
immersing in books and writing stories
sipping black coffee with spices
They
watch people and clouds to pass time
tread through the powdery rain in Vans
reassemble Vincent’s starry night in jigsaw puzzle
under the autumn silvery moon
hedgehogs hide by the vegetable patch
melancholic harmonica playing softly
My Honeycomb!
Do you know
you are meant to
be empty and lonely
for I was born to
come and fill you
with sweetness in
every hollow room.
We drip of
wealth and riches
overflow with harvest
cacoon in our happy home.
Oh my sweet sweet Honeycomb!
