Following the Moon to the Maple Land, A Haibun

for my first Canada Day, July 1, 2003

Name: Chen-ou Liu (phonic);
Country of Birth: R.O.C.;
(Cross out R.O.C. and fill in Taiwan) 1
Place of Birth; Date of Birth; Sex;
simply more technocratic questions
the Immigration Officer needs to pin down my borders.
He is always looking for shortcuts,
more interested in the roadside signposts
than in the landscape that has made me.
The line he wants me confined to
is an analytically recognizable category:
immigrant. My history is meticulously stamped.
Now, you're legally a landed immigrant.
Take a copy of A Newcomer’s Introduction to Canada.

from Lake Ontario
I scoop the Taiwan moon
distant sirens

Contemporary Haibun Online, 10:2, July 2014