I CHING
Not five thousand years ago
But yesterday
In a flight of freedom from
the silky sheaves
of affluent slumber
folded in
A coffee table book
in a Hong Kong household
Our great ancestor
Grandfather Fu Hsi
the Chinese seer
Leapt out of chronology
Freed from the tentacles of calendars
and exhaled
into the
landscape of my soul
splitting the mountain ranges
of my existence
all into sixty four hexagrams
each one a tell tale oracle
he said
the geometry of my being
aligned with
wind earth heaven
fire rain moon
mountain and thunder too –
With the call of lineage
answered
I stood like a heron
in contemplation
still and steady
Ready for the cries of birth.
The Woman with a Baby
Lilacs and tulips sprouting
from the slants of her eyes
Her yellow face
shimmering in white sunlight
Her body, a luminescent garden
Life within life dancing on
Feather feet
The rising belly, a tight sponge
Puffed into lightness
Lingering pasts
In the ruins of the fortress
at Macau,
Her hands going in circles
Caressing the baby inside,
On the cozy pathway
Whispering history in Portuguese,
Old times hanging with roots
from the tired branches
of Banyan trees;
Whiffs of future blowing
from the citadel of the present,
Singing the song of her body
The woman walked
Through smoke and dust
Our eyes met,
Chinese with Indian,
Entwined in maternity
Not mediated by English;
Tiny movements rising
in our bellies,
fish churning in the ocean,
birds flapping wings through the skies
drooping eyelids, batting heavy
ready to enter light
and exit the bliss of sleep.
