The space between shadows [poem]

There is a place
within the folds of the universe,
across the whispers of Ages,
the space between shadows
that cradle the being and the non

There is a time
in the moments of a rainbow,
between the stroke of midnight
and the beginning of it all,
through the veil of Millenia
when Obscurity meets Clarity

There is a feeling
of lurking, of pinpricks
on the back of the neck,
of the taste of darkness
weighing heavy on the tongue
with the sticky sweet cloy of light

Where Yesterday meets Tomorrow
in the space between the shadows
of the Now

The creatures in the in-between
dance and glide and
swim through dreams of
chance meetings of Life and Death,
of raw encounters of the fleshly kind,
nightmare creatures of
Lost Hopes and Perfect Dreams

There is a place
in the space between shadows
at the beginning of a long journey
and the end of a lifetime,
a heartbeat and a universe away

Is the silent edge to nowhere and infinity
balanced along a single delicate thread,
where reality is made, and destroyed,
and re-created. If,
by some chance encounter (or fate),
You find your Self on this path,
what will you do?


{Note: This poem was published in Vol. 2, Iss. 3 of Rigorous, an online journal written an edited by people of color.} 

Artwork by LillTommy - DeviantArt

http://space-between.deviantart.com/art/Staircase-to-a-better-future-141018609

The End of the World Again [poem]

Note: This poem was published in Rigorous, an online journal edited and written by people of color, in Volume 1, Issue 2.


I have not come here to compare notes
but to sit together in the stillness
at the end of the world.

Yesterday I asked you if you remember
that time we went to see the dinosaur
at that museum we both liked
And you said to me,

“You mean the museum you like, and don’t you mean
  the whale? It was the whale.”

I nodded in agreement but I know it was the
Dinosaur, the biggest creature that ever
walked the Earth, now extinct,
made of petrified bones,
plaster and fiberglass, held together
by bits of steel and ingenuity,

Much like the world we live in, lived in,
made of the real and the fake,
the truth and that posing as truth.
A small army of billions built it
with love and hope and bits of genius
engineering, steel and grit,
sweat and tears, all the cliches that

We fall back on in times of
upheaval and profound change. And yet
the people keep on keeping on, forging a way
forward, moving out of the sticky
mud mess that we got ourselves into
in the first place.

They always make it out, patching up wherever
possible, with tape and glue,
perseverance, pluck and mettle,
And with the brilliance and smarts that creates
order from chaos, a fascinating interplay
of conflicting functions,

The kinds of minds and heart that is hard to come by
Nowadays.

We look at the bubble that holds the world,
sit and watch as the bubble is slowly collapsing
in, consuming itself, we sit
detached and waiting.

How are you feeling about all of this, you
With your big ideas and your glib tongue,
You with your poetry that is a witness to magnitude.
Your profundity bringing focus to the epic
that is, was?, the life of the world

Though the world was an accident,
its peoples an afterthought, formed
in the crevices of the gray matter that
may have been the drunken mind of an All-being
but could just as well have been a fluke,
an odd fish in the salt sea of nonsense.

What do you think is the legacy of this life,
your wisdom in these moments of death
and possible rebirth?
Like that time we were at that party and
they were all harping on about that book,
pretentious opinions falling off lips
like water down a fall, rushing to the
bottom, sinking to the muddy deep, and you said something,
A riposte that would have shut it all down

If not for that explosion at the same moment
that had them running to the windows
to gape at the ruins of a truck and minivan,
Spectators of lives in ruination.

You didn’t say you wanted better, only
that you wanted more.
What did you mean?

No, don’t tell me.
I do not want to know.
I want to find out for myself
if there is a future.
I have not come to compare notes, or to listen
to you after all this time, I just
want to sit next to you, in silence, and
to hear the end, and wait for a new beginning
to come out of the ashes of the end of the world,
again.

An Art to Holding On [poetry]

Note: This poem was published in Rigorous, an online journal edited and written by people of color, in Volume 1, Issue 2.


I took a picture of the city
and the city disappeared
Memories fading into the rudimentary
colors of a four by six;
Framed and caged in a one-dimension
imitation of a genuine city
halfway around the world.

That last bite of coq au vin
Sticking to the tip of the tongue
Like a faded memory of desperate lust,
That last glimpse of the Nile
a vision of awe and wonder and
reminiscent of bittersweet dreams,
That last trek up the five hundred
and fifty-one steps of St. Peter’s
Basilica, sweaty regret giving way
to the profound sadness of loss and leaving.

What I wouldn’t give to hold onto
the truths I had acquired, the beauty
I had witnessed, the desperate feeling
of falling in love
with a strange city in a strange land;
That desire, that wish, to belong
to a place not one's own.

I recorded the music of the city
and the music faded into the air,
Lyric voices lost to the sounds of silence
and replaced by the cacophony
of home, forever lost in
the distortion of memory.

I try to view my own city
through the eyes of a visitor,
But all I see is the leaning
Tower of Pisa, the striking point
of the Eiffel Tower, the sparkling
Waters of the Mediterranean,
The pink sands of the Bahamas beaches.

Why is it that we long for the places
we don’t inhabit, that we lust
for the cities, the countries
that don't contain us;
A desire to be other than here and
dream the memories of foreign delights
tugging at our hearts and souls.

There is an art to holding onto beauty,
whether the beauty is
perceived or genuine,
and an art to letting it go, and we are
far more desperately practiced in
the holding on.

Traces of me [fiction]

Give it time, he said, as if time was spare change in the pocket to give or throw away, as if time—Amorphous! Elusive!—were mine to give. Yesterday (or was it last year?) my heart was torn from my body and thrown into the road and I watched as it lay dying, the face of my son, my only child, my life, staring up at me through the pools of blood on the pavement. I no longer recognize the smiling faces of the people in the photographs; my husband, who was once so vibrant, transformed in the misery and agony of loss. I look in the mirror and I no longer recognize the stranger gazing back at me with my own eyes. Sometimes life is almost normal—we dine together, sometimes he cooks and sometimes I do, we watch T.V. and go to bed—though the warmth is gone. Sometimes I come home to an empty house and I order Chinese, husband stumbling home past midnight, eyes red from silent tears. This solid life of uncertainty.

It has been two Springs, two Summers, two Autumns, and one long Winter, seven seasons of lost time, and I have received little in return. I stand outside in the fresh blanket of snow, staring up at my house flanked by the bright homes of my neighbors, decorated in the happy glowing colors of the holidays. The ghostly house with the lone lit upstairs window where my husband is undoubtedly sitting alone in a sadness I cannot handle, for I can barely handle my own, the weight of it crushing my bones, is a dark blotch on the merrily-lit street. I feel myself shrinking into nothing.

Tomorrow I will tell him that time has run out and I have no more of it left to give, though in truth, time was never an issue to begin with. I have accepted that job overseas. I am leaving next week. I doubt the news will be a surprise—it may even be a relief. I tramp up the driveway to the front door, shivering in the cold, leaving dark boot-prints that will be filled in a matter of minutes by the freshly falling snow, erasing any traces of me.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane - a book review

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I received an advanced reading e-book copy of this book from Jellybooks.com. I have always wanted to read Lisa See but I just had not gotten around to it. When I got this opportunity to read an advanced reading copy, I jumped on it.

This book centers around an Akha (Chinese ethnic minority) girl, Li-Yan, who gives birth to a daughter at a very young age out of wedlock. Because of the beliefs of her culture she was forced to give up her daughter, who was adopted by an American family. It is about Li-Yan's growth, her inner conflicts between her ethnic upbringing and her exposure to a modern and changing China, how she finds balance between the two worlds, and how she reconciles the events of her past. The book seamlessly interweaves the story of Li-Yan and that of her daughter, and how their destinies are tied together by the culture of Pu-Erh tea.

This was a deeply immersive book; I had a difficult time putting it down. Lisa See does an amazing job setting up the plot and the setting, and developing the characters. The history and culture was well-researched, placing the reader right in the middle of all the growth and changes in the characters, the times, and the country. She writes beautiful prose that really draws the reader into the details of the world and the culture.

I learned so much about tea, the culture surrounding it, the history, and the effects of the growing demand for it on China. I drink tea and I am gifted teas from family and friends, but I never knew how multi-faceted tea culture was. This book made me want to learn more about tea and how to determine the quality of the teas in my modest collection.

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane comes out on March 21, 2017 and it will make a fine addition to any bookshelf. I will definitely be reading more of Lisa See.

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