Staceyann Chin

The Clarity of Hindsight

behind me trails transparent
wide blue skies
tilted toward vision and execution

wish I could have seen
the world from here
yesterday

dream and hope and expenditure
is a series of cruel falsifications

the sun is out in Clinton
Upstate New York blinks foreign to me

worlds turn
and we learn the reason for this
for that

so many perspectives are available
from here
only one pulls at me

urgent
it refuses denials
new faces

old faces
what should I do with these detached
visages bubbling under the change

I think we might have burned something
turmoil and tragedy
language and expectation

be careful what you call it
self fulfilling
announcements

look before you leap
cliches land four footed and certain
here everything falls
and we have all broken something

some more than others
get back into the process
bleeding and brave

some of us fly solo
others
attach ourselves parasite to the love
of some soaring being

if there is forgiveness to be had
I am pleading my own case

come back to me my language
my land
my face reflected in your tongue

two times lucky
three times charmed

tell me
what you need
and I will make it a part of me

better than the promises made in absentia
I walk brave against this night perpetual
light breaking shallow in my ear

come back
my way of saying
my talk

breath
I miss my home

Missing you more
because it is fall

let us plant flowers in the wishes that died
let us wait for blooms

water them
careful pluck the dead leaves away
crackle me the dialect
foreign in my mouth

let me live
once more inside the belly of a language
a way of feeling
different from mine

I grew wings upon returning
breaking the feathers
sprouting tentative on your back

let us fly together
nation
revisited

land I love
home is nothing but a place you breath
unnoticed

like air
my love
my home
my land
my breath

from Hamilton College in New York
this is Staceyann
yearning for home

Posted by staceyann at October 5, 2005 02:32 PM