Time

The flower sits on the window
In the soil rescued from the beating sun
Flower, sun

Grandmother’s touch
Her hands rough from
The days farming the land
Hiding in bomb shelters
Birds flying with missiles
The red white blue, the land of the rising sun
Education was absent
But none was needed, to know
The amount of lives lost
In this conflict
Her life, so delicate

Seventy years later
She smiles
In the company of friends
She farms the backyard
Glancing up to see
The pigeons, gracefully flocking
And worries of possums, and insects
Eating her crop
Over the years
Her hands wrinkle slightly
Although rough, still soft in touch and
Nurtures the plants like
They are her babies
Waters them, protects them, and loves them

Like when she once carried me on her shoulders
Her tiny frame
Able to subdue the riots
My older brother and I began
Over control of the game boy
She loves
Talking of old times
When I used to raise my little hands up
To be carried around the house
Or when I was loud, crying, or shouting
Putting me on her shoulders
Would put me into a nap
And she would place me
On the couch
And return to her work

Her cooking
Oh! How great it was
The fried rice
The chow mein
That I can smell upstairs

Orange chicken
Was invented in the United States
And no, she does not know how to cook it
She goes to church
Praying for our family

My grandfather
Who smoked a pack a day
Since he was a teen
And one day
Hung precariously on that cliff
Over the ominous sea of darkness
In the hospital
But willed himself
Back to the life of righteousness
Threw away those smokes
Overnight, just like that
He awaited the call to invade Japan
The night before Hiroshima
Waiting, silently
Knowing some may never make it out alive
Or himself, that heavy heart
Sitting there, and dodge this bullet
But another one
Will strike sixty five years later
In the form of smoke
Leaving the tar of emphysema
Although the cut has been stopped
The wound still leaves a scar

We sit at the dinner table
Speaking the native tongue
That I’m thankful for
Able to absorb their wisdom
Thankful for their lives
And what they have left

East meets west

Watching the sun set
The colors permeate the sky
And drift into the sound of
The distant television
The sun fades
And the time glass
Nears its end

*_jeff chen