POEMS FROM CHINA

by Sukrita Paul Kumar

 

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The Chinese Cemetery I Ching

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The Chinese Cemetery

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The smile in the photograph

Is no reflection of what lies

In the dark hollow of the tunnels

Behind cement squares in rows,

Each, one-by-one in size

Marked by dates, picture and name

Of a tiny flash

A dot of life in the universe

 

Ashes in urns

Ancestors as concepts

In treasure vaults

Wrapped in rituals

Recycling memory

year after year

 

For the snow to melt

And the river to flow

 

Bones crackling 

In sacred pyre,

 

The funeral   

In The World of Suzie Wong

Consumed the baby,

and then, lapped up

-the letter of introduction-

¡§To whom-so-ever it may concern¡¨,

 

Flames are messengers 

Carrying the known

To the unknown

 

Life to afterlife

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I Ching

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Not five thousand years ago

But yesterday

 

In a flight of freedom from

the silky sheaves

of affluent slumber

folded in

A coffee table book

in a Hong Kong household

 

Our great ancestor

Grandfather Fu Hsi

the Chinese seer

 

Leapt out of chronology

Freed from the tentacles of calendars

 

and exhaled

into the

landscape of my soul

 

splitting the mountain ranges

of my existence

all into sixty four hexagrams

 

each one a tell tale oracle

he said

 

the geometry of my being

aligned with

wind earth heaven

fire rain moon

mountain and thunder too ¡V

 

With the call of lineage

Answered

I stood like a heron

In contemplation

Still and steady

 

Ready for the cries of birth.

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