Posted on

Poets to Poets (5) –joining us reading tonight!

Thank Mel Sarnese for inviting me to read at the Canadian Author’s Association Toronto Branch event ( Grano, 2035 Yonge Street. 7:00 to 10:00 on Sept 20). I met Mel during our 2008 summer Poetry workshop. And I remember her poetry… here is one I wrote after her reading…

I remember the poets
from our summer poetry workshop.
We sunseat in the George town
building. Mr. Babstock stretches
his long legs…  

throwing us with
his summoned power—
to be, right now,
the slaves of imagination.
Breezes come in and out.
M pencil touches the white sheet –
how I wish a river flows over me.
We take turns to read,
Mel reads her part at last.

Her SARS’ story floats like a ghost.
Today I still feel like watching a flim.

Those cold late nights,
after all fallen asleep,
her two toddlers emerged
upon a deserted park, swung their short bliss.
They held on the tiny joy of freedom,
relished them bit by bit
during their quarantined life.
Confined by walls,
they drew the blossom of imagination.

Something one could never teach.
Mr. Babstock dismisses us
to our lives.

Posted on

9/18 I want to share this poem: Mourning Song- for Iris Zhang

Iris ZhangIris Shun-Ru Chang was an American historian and journalist. She is best known for her best-selling 1997 account of the Nanking Massacre, The Rape of Nanking. She committed suicide on November 9, 2004

 

 

 

 

Mourning Song

How long will I hold up?
I feel your ashes around me.
Your song of life can not be complished;
I hear the wind blow it away.

Time is an empty piano,
white and black, with a disturbed tune.
What slips through our fingers?
My heart falls with your fleeting existence.

White and black, the empty sky,
white and black, the empty note,
I look for the stars’ guidance,
only find petals like snowflakes.

Time is an empty piano,
white and black, with a disturbed tune.
Your song of life cannot be complished;
I hear the wind blow it away.

I hear the wind blow it away…

(I wrote this after I heard the sad news in 2004)