Hong Kong: Songs from the Rooftops
“In these shaken times, who more than you holds
In the wind, our bittermelon, steadily facing
Worlds of confused bees and butterflies and a garden gone wild”
--梁秉鈞, Bittermelon
VII Sai Kung: 西貢區
life splinters forward
et
we could not have our own--
memories already
sorted and peeled away—
the thread that holds the bamboo and palm light together.
He is that line that encircles shadow and rickshaw and holds you in place,
the line that brings the palimpsest of the child’s voice temperamental in the corner of the neighbor’s life
and the long absences excavated
a grandmother’s sewing box falling off a broken balcony, splintered on the street
backalley cat accordianing itself through brick and mortal, balance beam life
your scribbled not a tram, sitting next to you a piece of paper fallen out of a pocket
鬼揞眼
exoskeleton of a diary, a lost conductor, the paramour’s tears and parade,
dragon stone and dream--
as the walking guard demands written meaning
tabled upon jade jawlines
inked on family tensils and bones,
there is so much more.
Not so?
Still, waiting
you shall write that upon the scars of the river shelving the hillline
apples fallen upon the shy, persimmon and dragon fruit
underneath hooves
all that going and coming and tea once combined with pine needle and wool.
Thus: us, here.
I am you are
thinking of journeys, windward fire-burned settlings,
we leeward and hungry
ghost seed and flax sung set to flame
the crackle of ancestor,
a broken tooth, dimpled dappled stone and earth wing--
Hualien’s Eastern streets licked clean
the street vendor coastal chalked and quick
Taiwan taking toll through a forlorn train station: Duoliang 多良
piggybacking one family lilting home,
one family disembarked, this stop and step and de-railing,
all its waving,
undulating wayward aspiration, memories per which
you climbed Eastward bound.
There their hearts grow wild from seed and surf and suffrage light
some thirsty self voracious in its fingering
the child tipping print upon soot and scenic swipes: ghosts
must be fed and so shall they--
must we?
Remaining with the impossible makes the ideapossible
The lacuna steeped inside
beside a solitary Lotus on a Sunday morning in August
and the years break like breath against the corners of our skin, wing'd and welp'd: 万 里.
Once she held up the clouds while graffiti sled down the side of a wall
her tongue lapping up sky water and wind and there was something,
you new,
as she turned in the slanterned light, slacken
a thread that holds the bamboo and palm light together:
the bamboo thread that holds it all together
or was it only ever you.
