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

Monday, June 6, 2022

The Ritual

alone
underneath these sheets
dreamless night

clink, clunk, clink
of my spoon and fork
morning chill

graveyard garden 
I walk through the memory
of her laughter

gathering dark
on the way home a stone
settles in my heart



Added: for Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous 
The truth is we can survive our lives, but not our skin. But you know this already.


this snow-on-snow world
of one color breaking me 
bone by bone ...
afterward I'll be stronger
at the broken places 


Added:

gathering dusk ...
a row of teenagers
in MAGA hats
paint the border wall
with drunken shadows

(FYI: MAGA stands for Make America Great Again)