Openers

 

We had a good laugh over my flip-flops

the ones with bottle-openers in the soles

that I offered you - new and unworn -

because the AirBnB’s kitchen had no

can-openers, church-keys, or corkscrews

as if the people who lived there

only ever opened bottles with their teeth

or perhaps did not need a special utensil

to start the conversations that are sealed

inside mouths of glass.

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

Zugunruhe

 Zugunruhe: a feeling of restlessness or unease preceding migratiom

 

So many of our friends are saying

They too want to leave the country

Rising in flocks like starlings

Sweeping and turning to settle back

We call to them across the water,

tell them we have no regrets 

Come, come

darkness is falling on the fields we know.

Come, come

into the sunlight before winter claims you.

A shiver runs through the flock and as one

they turn to face the wind.

 

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

I Apologize, Hanoi

 

for treating you like a halfway house.

A necessary stage

between emigration and immigration,

a temporary hatstand.

I apologize for short-shrifting

your many-storied museums

and the fragrant noodle soups.

I should have spent the time

to admire the Chinese pond herons

on Lake Hồ Tây.

I was in a hurry - no excuse -

to get the visa done

and my heart was

                                                    stuck

between Portland (old home)

and Chiang Mai (new love).

There was no room for you, Hanoi,

no ricochet romance. I’m sorry.

You deserved better.

You charmed me with whimsy at West Lake Double Dragon statue,

terrified me with snarling traffic,

offered me peace at Vạn Niên pagoda.

Hanoi, city of many layers,

I left you half-unwrapped

under someone else's Christmas tree.

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

Among the Words of the Dead

 Vietnam Museum of Literature, Hanoi

A thousand years pass in the blink of an eye.

Nhân Tông, Buddha King, poet king

your people still remember your words.

Tomorrow, who will recite the verses of today?

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

On the Streets of Hanoi

after the lights change

schools of motorbikes slither

through reefs of traffic

 

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

The Quietude of Rain

 

Last week, at 4 AM

the whole neighborhood started awake.

Lightning stalked Doi Suthep's flanks

so bright, it was like a meteor.

Thunder so loud, it was like a freight train

so powerful, it could have been an earthquake.

Alarms went off and all the dogs barked.

Wakened to the violence of storm

we imagine distant warfare--

then sleep again, giving thanks

for peace, and for the quietude of rain.

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

one flash of lightning

 

one flash of lightning

Doi Suthep shrugs his shoulders

thunder falls like rain

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

Tea

 

Tea is a chestnut horse with a steam-grey mane. It’s a mountainside rippling bright green in the breeze, folded into a blue box with elephants marching round the lid. It was born on the Irrawaddy and gave birth to the Cutty Sark-- tea launched a thousand ships, white-winged clippers spanning the Pacific. Tea has been a tool of empire and a call to revolution. It’s a word in every language and a taste on every tongue. It’s smoke, grass, flowers; it’s sometimes called gunpowder but that’s just marketing.

Tea comes in the morning to chat about my plans for the day. Tea comes in the evening to wish me sweet dreams. When I cry into my teacup, the steam hides my tears. But what they tell you about tealeaves is not true, tea is too wise to play the fortune-telling game and would rather talk about history anyway.

Tea is black, white, yellow, red, green. They’ve trained monkeys to pick it but there are no machines that can do the job. It’s a warm blanket when it’s cold and a cool breeze when it’s hot; it likes to be served with grace and drunk with appreciation and if you can do that, it will always be your friend.

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

a nacreous cloud

 a nacreous cloud

an eye of iridescence

with long dark lashes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

Tea and Coffee

I’ve replaced my morning coffee

with a cup of oolong tea.

Plain oolong. Oolong with lemon.

Go-getter coffee that I drank for work

replaced with tea, for contemplation.

Oolong with florals. Oolong with vanilla.

I drank tea as a child, came to coffee

as an adult, never really liked the taste,

needed caffeine against chronic exhaustion.

Is it true that coffee was never really me?

I was born in the year of the Wood Dragon.

Now I drink oolong, black dragon tea.

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

Praise Song for the Mae Ping

 

I praise the Mae Ping

because she has swallowed thunder.

Because she carries the breath of mountains as far as the sea.

Because kingfishers haunt her banks and cranes fly overhead.

Her sisters and daughters, her mother, this family of rivers

make green these lands.

I praise her offspring dug by human hands across this plain between mountains.

I praise her because she holds us all in her lap.

She is strong and never sleeps. She will not be trifled with.

I praise the courage of the Lanna people

who call her floodplain home.

I praise the Mae Ping, headwaters, banks, low water and high; at each bend and bridge, I praise her.

Daughter of mighty mountains, child of the monsoon

I make my new home beside you.

I praise you.

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

Dangerous Crossing

 In the street, puddles grow and merge like the Red Sea preparing to swallow Pharoah. Motorcyclists zip by in candy-colored slickers. Who is the mysterious man in orange who halts traffic with a wave of his arm?

a shrill whistle sounds

thunder rumbles overhead

we cross in safety

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

a thousand-hooved herd

 

a thousand-hooved herd

trampling over the rooftops

monsoon rains approach

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

Blown Off Course

Broken clouds and shattered thunder

fill the sky. A stormy night.

Sheets of rain are torn asunder

by the wind that raids and plunders,

scattering its forks of light

through broken clouds. O, shattered thunder

in my heart, lands lost under

waves of salt that glitter bright!

Seas of tears that tear asunder

to reveal a hidden wonder--

new land receives my panicked flight.

Soften, clouds; fall silent, thunder.

Gentle rains, bring me delight.

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

A Different Green

Altogether brighter, not the

somber green of conifers.

Broad leaves, fig and frangipani, Indian almond,

pinnate, monkey-pod and Madagascar flamboyant.

No blossoms at this season

but the leaves will not fall.

I am unmoored from the calendar,

released from the tyranny of fall and spring.

I watch the rivers fill and sink,

slower breathing than I'm used to.

O leaf, green leaf that rhymes with grief

I'm learning to let go. Show me

how to choose my time.

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

Dead Season

 

The sky is grey and hides the sun,

there is no wind, the air is still.

The promised rain has not yet come.

In blazing summer, we would shun

the sunlight. knowing it can kill

but now the grey sky hides the sun.

In winter, we have learned to run

through puddles, dodging overspill

but now, the rain has not yet come.

Between things ended and begun,

between fall heat and winter chill,

the sky is grey. There is no sun

to warm the dead grass. Streams are dumb

and reservoirs cannot refill

because the rain has not yet come.

There is so much that must be done

but oh, I cannot find the will

while greyness blocks the light of sun

and I await the rain to come.

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

Academy of Natural Sciences, Drexel University, Philadelphia

 

The moose is still there, fifty-plus years later,

raising its antlered head before a backdrop

of painted water and taiga pines. Behind glass

it watches the curious crowds of people.

When I first saw it I was five, six--

probably younger-- I remember--

how it towered over me, the moose.

Since then I’ve stood in an elephant’s shadow

swum in the wake of giant mantas

slept at the foot of a live volcano. But awe

is not innate. You have to learn it. I learned it first

at the feet of the moose.

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

On my retirement

 

I’ve done a lot, and left undone the rest,

I lost some races, but I won the rest.

The day-sky fades to twilight castle-clouds,

Even the tireless sun must come to rest.

I sang this song through every verse I knew.

The tune goes on. I guess I’ll hum the rest.

The breeze tears cobwebs from my window-ledge,

who knows which spider there outspun the rest?

Seven days of work, and it was good,

and even God, whose Name is One, did rest.

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

Mockingbird

 

Hush, little baby, don't say a word

Papa's asylum case will not be heard.

And if asylum won't be given

Papa’s gonna go to detention prison.

And if detention’s not forever

Papa'll be deported when it's over.

And if he’s deported to the place we fled

In a year or so, papa will be dead.

And if he’s dead, they'll come for me

We’ll live in jail in the land of the free.

Hush, little baby, don't you cry

Papa will be with you by and by.

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside

Change

Well, you know

that every castle’s built on shifting sand.

Your certainties must turn to melting snow

and spill like water from your empty hands

And well you know

this world is not a solid place to stand

every kingdom’s waiting for its overthrow

and the future never will be what we planned.

But also know

that only rust remembers every battle

that only dust knows all it’s smoothed away.

The lucky man rides high in a golden saddle

for just one day

for just one day.

And well you know

the past has left you feeling abandoned

the present time just seems to go so slow

the future’s like a rock on which you’re stranded.

It may be so.

Remember though

that every lie in full of time will be unspoken

and every scar with passing years will fade away.

All your chains and prison bars, they will be broken

And we shall see

(oh, we shall see)

a brighter day.

 

Books Available
Dervish Lions
The Day of My First Driving Lesson
Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare's Stable
High-Voltage Lines
Knocking from Inside