Category: Poetry

This tree falls
in echoes of the saw,
roots pulled up roughly.

Dedicated hands
chisel them until
their dragon facade appears.

Dying, once resilient limbs
surviving flashes of lightning,

now recline under sympathetic eyes.
Turning round,
we hold ourselves

in layers of cold, hard  soil.
Transplant our roots—
hardship beyond anyone’s touch.

(From “Wings Toward Sunlight” by Mosaic Press 2011)

Standing in the Aboriginal Arts Gallery,
my eyes lock on
a carved soapstone.
Behind thick glass case, the haze
rises—
an old man’s sealed code
cries for the last person of his tribe,
nothing left but sand,
no dust to hold the chief’s tears.

Now the rain
is tapping on their dead land,
their broken arrows,
and droplets
drift through our revolving doors,
evaporate among soaring skyscrapers.

The gallery becomes his last
treasure holder,
his freezing island;
No matter how deep history sinks
in a long        and hidden river;
no matter what
currents wash up.