Thursday, June 25, 2015

Flashback to 10 summers ago

To island of my mother
if you call me daughter
with the sing-song lilt of sugar fields
I will gladly call you
home, and hand out red leis
when the time is right

The rice cakes were sticky, plump with goat cheese, filling my mouth with summer. 

Otherwise leave me drowsy 
among maple leaves
lush & green in summertime
I walk in circles
around trimmed city park
filled with blooms for tourists

The ten boxes & luggage were not enough, I wanted to bring the sea with me.   

I never left you motherland
I hand you this poem
pearly white as sand bars
in exchange 
for my tired bones
& wintered tongue

My father's eyes were damp with good-bye tears, but it was our summer of beginnings.






Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Flashbacks, hosted by Bjorn Rudberg ~
Today is the first day we landed in Canada as immigrants, 10 years ago ~   

Thanks for the visit ~

32 comments:

  1. Nice. I like the longer lines as they add your own personal story to what feels like it is written to the land itself. I think I would have loved to bring the sea with me as well. Every ending is a new beginning, that is for sure.

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  2. This is just wonderful.. the layers you create between the different times just adds to the way you are torn between the maple leafs and your family in tropics. Ten years mean something special, it gives perspective to your new life...

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  3. Dreamy, thoughtful and vivid with a twinge of regret, love and hope. Well done!

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  4. Your poem conveys the idea the depth and the persistence of the call of the 'motherland.' One keeps it alive inside one's soul, even when one is geographically far away. Some beautiful lines in this poem, Grace.

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  5. The ten boxes & luggage were not enough, I wanted to bring the sea with me.... this just carries about thousand kilos of emotions - wow

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  6. I love how you convey emotions in this poem in a way that is not sappy, probably because the images are short and simple but ring very true.

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  7. Oh, that is wonderful - those ten boxes and the sea had me tearing up...
    Nice play of contrasts, and yet a delicate balance too - an end and a beginning.

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  8. "with the sing-song lilt of sugar fields
    I will gladly call you
    home"

    I love that.

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  9. This is beautiful and brimming with nostalgia.

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  10. This poem goes straight to my heart - the memories of your motherland, your father's tears, you wanting to bring the sea with you. YES! A beautiful poignant and wonderful write, right from your heart and into ours. Bless you.

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  11. New beginnings sure took shape, as you moved to Canada's sea

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  12. The ten boxes & luggage were not enough, I wanted to bring the sea with me.

    These are such powerful lines.. I felt your connection to the sea.. to the motherland.. Beautifully penned!

    Lots of love,
    Sanaa

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  13. Mother of you, the sea - mother of us all. So many contrasts in this and the longer lines are separate poems in themselves. Oh, how I wish I had the ocean of my childhood in a suitcase I could open any time. This was such an emotional and poignant poem. It brought tears.

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  14. ' I wanted to bring the sea with me. ' ~ resonates... Thank you.

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  15. Very nice job. The second stanza is stunning.

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  16. Oh.. even living at home.. one can escape home and no longer know home.. my home is beach as well when young but work takes the time away to visit beach for decades more.. going back in 2008.. finally after work almost takes me down.. i remember but cannot get that feeling of home in beach again.. but finally i go back 2 years ago.. and find that home of beach within me at beach or not.. realizing that home is where the spirit thrives.. alive.. in now.. with Love..:)

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  17. A beautiful poem for your homeland (past & present), full of love and memories!

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  18. the strong connection with motherland becomes vivid with the longer lines in the beautiful poem that speaks of your deep emotion....

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  19. What a beautiful sandy beach! and a beautiful story or flashback of your summers there..it's easy to see how it highlights your entire life with such sunshine and warm sentiments.

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  20. You so beautifully, and poignantly, conveyed the difference between the land of your youth and your life today. Living in Canada must have been a real adjustment for you and your famiy--however, you seem to have done extremely well in that department!

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  21. OH MY, I just wanted to crawl into the scene--SO Beautiful!

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  22. What can I say? This is simply incredible writing. I am in awe.

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  23. Just so very lovely!

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  24. the prompt was, apparently, perfectly timed for your wonderful poem. I like the "haibunesque" quality of this.

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  25. It's not just the actual poem that is beautiful but also the accompanying image. That solitary starfish means so much in the context you created. Thanks.

    Greetings from London.

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  26. Wo ik her kaam,
    is dat Land so free un wiet,
    wasst dat Gras un bleuht de Klee,
    ruckt de Luft na Solt un See,
    blänkert Water, ruschelt Reith,
    jagt de Wulken, Wind de weiht,
    wo ik her kaam.

    Helmut Debus: Wo ik herkam ...

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  27. Absolutely & Beautifully Good. I love this piece.

    P.S Stop by my page and read my latest poem. I promise you it will make sense or I make sense for the 3rd time around a poem like this.

    It's called: You’re Stupidity Spills out Diseased Excuses

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  28. Aw. A beautiful place and a touching story.

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  29. Congratulations on ten years ....beautiful poem.

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