I stopped sending you letters
on your wedding day
Still, I keep writing
In my mind, you are still my loyal reader
Dreams are the cubby-house I built for us
where our memories live
春天
我踩着绒雨
向山里走去
脚下的黄泥
混着树的翠绿
沉淀着天的灰蓝
故人的墓地
栖息在满地的黄菜花
我舍不得扒开
这么娇美的装饰
就如你出嫁时的抚媚
你洞房的红烛还在弦乐舞蹈
我按住竹篮里的沉檀香和衣纸
害怕美好的回忆被打扰
更怕我的眼泪勾出安息的你
In spring,
I walked on the velvety rain and headed for the mountains.
The yellow mud under my feet mixed with the green of the trees and the gray-blue of the sky.
The grave of an old friend was covered with yellow flowers.
I couldn’t bear to tear them apart.
Such a beautiful decoration reminded me of your wedding day.
The red candles in your bridal chamber were still dancing with string music.
I pressed the sandalwood incense in the bamboo basket.
I was afraid that the beautiful memories would be disturbed.
I was even more afraid that my tears would evoke you who was resting in peace.
In my dream
We grow old together
You bring me a cup of tea with trembling hands
I ask you to go for a walk with me
And you still say no
I remember
You said
We would argue in poetry
The same way
We would show love in poems
All these years
I keep writing
Because
I haven’t stopped
Loving you
It was your birthday yesterday
We would have popped a bottle of bubbly
To toast to your ageless beauty
And our friendship
I would have gifted you a big bunch of sunflowers
We would have laughed the infectious laughter
And giggled to some lame jokes
Or neither of us remembered the punch line
I miss you
And the days I’ll never have
With you
In my life
I am not ready
For the world to see
My deepest thoughts
About you
I bury them
Between lines of a story
In an ode to nature
Even
Among a bunch of old photos
Fading away faster
Than my memory
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
I miss the time I could daydream by the wooden window facing the treetops. Summer breeze took my thoughts far away to the forest where my eyes would be filled with shades of green and brown earth. Those days were so worth it even at times I suffered the humiliation of a chalk being thrown at my face, trying to bring me back to whatever boring class it was, usually history and politics.
At graduation, you gifted me a pencil sketch of the back of my head with a high ponytail, my head faced north west to the window in the classroom, the gateway to my world of escape. You captured me capturing the wonders of the world far beyond the treetops through that wooden frame. And I wondered if I was your world of escape.
Flicker of Thoughts 