A New Regime
After rumbling threats
clouds will push up flowers
we will eat for a season.
Not so far away
coal will be mined afresh by rats
for the just-elected regime,
a hill alienated further
from hill people.
Stray Lines…
Old hearts in bud
until yellow spring pollen
make them sneeze foolishly.
With starlight still in your eyes
to be roused by a mountain rooster,
to spy bees returning on winter sunbeams.
The Buddha Amitabha said:
“Time to find pure land in your hearts.
You have steeped your water, earth,
and air in halahala.”
These quiet books of poetry,
these motion pictures of love and war,
this abandoned spring rain and longing
for someone I may never find again,
to whom shall I leave them?
Songbird
Although December silenced her
the little songbird
wanted nothing for her song.
Spring
Another spring-borne day,
a longer day once we close eyes
and cannot let go of sea blue hills
and songs learnt beneath white clouds,
the rhododendron climbs,
raspberry hampers in lips caught by surprise,
because we may also miss the calloused hands
which nursed us during our youthful delirium,
until we open eyes to rehearsing birds
among green leaves far away from winter.
This is what saves us
from beauty, this prolonged sadness,
although we swore on the snow
we’ll raise a glass when hearts melt.
City, Spring
Spring rain
like some belated grace
seeps into memory, from the feet up.
A city on its way
to becoming smart
but the same overcast restaurant
where we sipped bitter coffee.
From the car-choked street
the same tailor losing his sight
in a dim basement and
you can almost hear the old men
talking again about leaving
over yesterday’s sweetmeat and
smell the rat urine
wafting from a grocery store where
to remind us of a bemused life
drops of rice spill on blacktop
from a wayward sack
in vermilion.
