Multi-Asking

Questions parents may ask
Their offspring.

Often in multiples of many
Until emotions run high.

Are indefinite answers
Any better than silences?

I ask on behalf of others
Too busy to bother.

Attention Booked

The reader steals
Words: first the title
Or the author, then
The quotes and the blurbs,
Perhaps even sampling the first page...

Entertained, the thief loses, and buys
The book: gripping words blur into
Paragraphs and chapters,
Until the reader is stolen
By the book...

Son’s Parting Song

My mother’s hand wanders straight with her thread,
Sewing my seams echoes my faroff tread.

Step by step her fingers walk with stitches,
Unraveling my travels with needles.

Spring sunshine in her eyes wishes me well,
I depart, clothed in my mother’s farewell.

- I used a Tang Dynasty poem as inspiration for mine.
- Here is the original poem, 遊子吟 (Yóuzǐ Yín), ‘Song of the Wanderer’, by the Tang Dynasty Chinese poet 孟郊 (Mèng Jiāo).
- 遊子吟 (Yóuzǐ Yín) is poem #45 in the 300 Tang Poems.

《遊子吟》- 孟郊

慈母手中線，
遊子身上衣。
臨行密密縫，
意恐遲遲歸。
誰言寸草心，
報得三春暉。