Becoming an Adult: A Tanka Sequence

for Jean Rostand who claims that to be adult is to be alone

Times Square
I leave my hometown
memories
in a crowd
speaking foreign languages

loneliness spreads out
her arms over my heart
murmuring
you are the marrow of my bones
and flesh of my heart

between
two tips of the crescent moon
mother and I
age in separate worlds
at the different pace

the crescent moon
shines on my nostalgia
past hopes
wither
on its lower tip

for eight years now
we've seen the opposite sides
of the same moon
gazing up at it
I drink a full cup

July/August 2010 issue of Sketchbook