by William Marr

Homecoming

lest it dilute the joy of reunion
kinsfolk remind each other
let bygones be bygones
while turning their heads
and furtively wiping off
the tears at the corner of their eyes
then forcefully putting on
a wrinkled smile
as if opening a parasol
that has been put aside
for a long time

At Lo Wu Station, Summer 1980

I know she is not my mother
my mother is in Chenghai
I bade her a tearful goodbye ten hours ago
but this old woman with a cloth bundle in her hand
looks so much like my mother

I know he is not my father
my father is in Taipei
I am going to visit him in a couple of days
but this old man staggering with a cane
looks so much like my father

they meet on the platform
glancing at each other
and are indeed strangers

having been separated for over thirty years
my mother with a cloth bundle in her hand
encounters my father staggering with a cane
on the platform of this border station
they exchange glances
and, alas!  don’t even recognize each other

*Like so many Chinese families, my family was split by the Chinese civil war.
My father with my elder brother and myself lived in Taiwan, while my mother with the rest of the family remained in China Mainland.  During the summer of 1980, I visited my mother for the first time in more than 30 years.  This poem was conceived on the train waiting to leave for Hong Kong at Lo Wu Station which was then China’s only door opening to the outside world.

Bian-Zhong

— An Ancient Chinese Musical Instrument Unearthed

They put in this time capsule
whispering wind from a bamboo grove
rippling stream under a wooden bridge
joyous shouts of children playing
gentle chat of grownups
mooing  barking  crowing  chirping  cooing
and the occasional rumbles
from a distant mountain

All of these and many more
they sealed and buried in the ground
to let us hear
thousands of years later
the ringing of a tranquil world

On The Towpath

Cut into the flesh
the rope
raw as original sin
pulls them back
on the muddy shore
each step a struggle
for the last stand

The endless succession of ayo ayo
is neither a complaint
nor a song
just to remind themselves
they are still alive

The Great Wall

1

The struggle between civilization
and barbarism
must be ferocious

See this Great Wall
it twists and turns
with no end in sight

2

What valor
to climb the ragged ridge
and to look long and hard
through a self-adjusting lens
at the skeleton of the dragon
that sprawls miles and miles
in the wasteland
of time

by William Marr