A New Person Every Day

A New Person Every Day

I made a picture composed of six clocks,
installed it above my bed with the help of a friend.
This friend and I, we're not speaking anymore
but his effort continues to hold up the timepieces,
representing six zones. I've confiscated their batteries.
Connections keep miscarrying anyway.
Until I figure out why, I won't start new ones,
busy as I am with all the stuff
from overseas:  my mother in Singapore
confides that third brother has been checked
into an institution. Apparently there had been a fuss.
Don't tell father I told you, she adds. I won't,
I say into the phone, wondering with whom
I'm being more complicit. My Hunanese friend
didn't reply to my IM for one whole night,
and only the next day tells me the news
that he didn't get into grad school in Shanghai.
Had it not been for my encouragement in the first place,
would his disappointment have been less strong?
A Taiwanese friend complains that the wrong president
has been elected. I wonder what Xiaogang thinks,
with whom I severed contact.
I had said unretractable things to him in KL,
which he unfairly would not let me retract, crying
"There's no use forcing friendship after the fact."
New in Beijing, my Hong Kong friend
sends an Email mistakenly identifying Aristotle
as the originator of Aristophanes's  "two halves" story
in the header. In the body, she announces
her engagement with Colm,
a new person she just met 28 days ago.
I undeceive her about Aristophanes.
Jean-Michel deletes me from his messenger —
first from his Médecins Sans Frontières account,
then from his U.K. home.
I wonder if this is a function of
too many new people clogging up his Skype,
though I then remember that he did lose grandmaman
shortly before I said "Peut-être" to his "A bientôt,"
and then over his "Arrête!"
drew the lips of my laptop shut.
In San Francisco, B. whom I love
is making a film I won't ever see.
The memory is still fresh in my mind,
of our knees knocking under the table
as above, he takes my hand in his.

posted by SHALINE (potato)

Digging - Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

Maya Angelou - I know why the caged bird sings

A free bird leaps on the back
Of the wind and floats downstream
Till the current ends and dips his wing
In the orange suns rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through his bars of rage
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged BIRD stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with
A fearful trill of things unknown
But longed for still and his
Tune is heard on the distant hill
For the caged bird sings of freedom.