A haiku sequence for my father who was born in mainland China, lived most of his adult life in Taiwan, died and was buried there in 2022
a lone star
Father's dreamworld becomes
his hospice window
the slanted beam
of a winter sun ...
Father's last smile
morning chill
a part of me lowered
with Father's coffin
sleepless again
I hear Father crying out
Mama, I'm coming home
this dream loop:
Father rides on my shoulders
into the Taiwan Strait
Father waving his hand
just before I wake up ...
this false dawn
Added:
Pacific sunrise --
alone after a storm
I listen
to the flat calm
of my inner world
Added: reading between the lives and writing between the lines, LXX
one by one
friends leave me in Toronto
for small towns
they fancy a house with a lawn,
a backyard pool and dogs
FYI: Toronto Star, Oct. 22, 2022: ‘An exodus of families’: Toronto’s decline in children should be an election issue: We are all familiar with dystopian narratives of societies where children are scarce. Toronto is in danger of becoming such a place.
As Ontario’s population ages and relies on immigration for expansion, children represent a shrinking percentage of the overall total. Some critics have summed up the failures in a single word: housing. As in there simply isn’t enough for families, neither in suitable forms nor at attainable prices.
