Chen-ou Liu's Translation Project: First English-Chinese Haiku and Tanka Blog

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

First Year in the Maple Land

it's flight not fright,
you're flawed not a fraud ...
the white teacher
tries to put a zipper
on my Chinese mouth

I used to be...
cut off in the middle
by her last look
stabbing me
into silence

I walk jumbled ground
above the bones
of Gold Mountain men ...
searching for the pieces
of a broken dream

winter rain
speckles attic windows
the ghostly past
knocking on the door
of my immigrant mind

Ribbons, 13:2, spring/summer 2017

Note: After gold was found in the Sierra Nevada in 1848, thousands upon thousands of Chinese began to travel to the West in search of gold and riches. Gold Mountain, the Chinese version of the Promised Land, is historically used broadly  to refer to western regions of North America.