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。

Equals

You’re not my distraction. You
are not eye candy for my gaze. You’re

not the minus to my plus. You
are not the cause of my racing pulse. You’re

beautiful for you first, and you
are worth loving on your terms. I’m

not your subtraction, and I
am not part of your equation. I’m

not your opposite formulation. We
are tropical islands without quays. We’re

not together on this ocean, but we
are not traveling alone at sea, are we?

Is That You Or Me?

A statue dances
in stillness. Yet we
see the dynamic

of a potential
movement and feel it
deep down in the bones

of our brain and our
perfect memories...

Is that me in you?
Did some artist freeze

me in stone, in bronze,
in sand, in rusty

iron, and steal my
humunculus soul
to make me dance on?