Poetry

Power Out!

~ Byungafallgren ~ 4 Comments 
Power Out!
by Hayley Broadway

Power out!
All dark and black...
Fret not
Body bumps
Hand gliding softly
Feet and the floor
Rug! another rug!
Budy bumping into another
We mesh and dance swiftly
Away in the dark

Hayley Broadway is a deaf blind researcher
and protractile educator working on 
several grants projects, including a national 
institutes of health study of language 
acquisition among deaf blind children.
She lives in Austine.

The Flashbacks

~ Byungafallgren ~ Leave a comment 
The Flashbacks

1.
This was where it began;
I ran outside, naked
before my first birthday
to see what all the booming 
from the sky was about.

2.
I was a little bird
in the tiny cage
of the dark space,
learned to not cry
even when hungry.

3.
The skating boy on the pond;
his mom, at the gate of her house, 
stopped me passing by 
to ask a few questions about my parents,
told her son to come home;
his word "No--"
What was in her mind?

In sixth grade graduation,
why he chose me to sing the song?

4.
The old elm with a large hollow 
in the trunk; by his side a shabby cedar tree,
beneath them the well,
the eye watching me watching it,
questing hidden tomorrow

©Byung A. Fallgren

The Barbed Wire Fence

~ Byungafallgren ~ Leave a comment 
The Barbed Wire Fence
by Joon-hi 

You look menacing.
All I want to do is to find my uncle,
but I cannot do that because of you.
But it's not your fault, not your fault.

--from the book Hal-Abeoji's Wish 

Joon-hi, the eight-year-old boy, wants to find his grand-uncle
who is supposed to be living in North Korea, before his grandfather 
dies and he becomes an orphan. Can he find him?


©Byung A. Fallgren








			

	


				
					


	

			
Stars
		

				

						 ~ Byungafallgren			 ~ 2 Comments					

				

		

Stars
Robert Frost (1874--1963)

How countlessly they congregate
    O'ver our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as tree
    when wintry winds do blow!--

As if with keenness for our fate,
    Out faltering few steps on
To white rest, and place of rest
    invisible at dawn,--

And yet with neither love nor hate,
    those stars like some snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
 without the gift of sight.


 


			

	


				
					


	

			
Ten Days
		

				

						 ~ Byungafallgren			 ~ 6 Comments					

				

		

Ten Days

The bell shattered the silence.
She opened the door ajar, the chain in safety;
her heart leaps to see his face, 
the past ten days fluttering in her mind;
little bird of time.

He went to visit his siblings , and
she didn't go with him. Law-daughter teased.
He might not come back. 

It was our agreement, Mother said.
shortened visit was not in his favor;
her stay would be only a few days.

When young, they were like,
me-and-my-shadow togetherness;
when old, they each have their own shadow;
they even have their own space for ease.

the ten days separation is water;
water cannot be cut. 

©Byung A. Fallgren

 

			

	


				
					


	

			
Shadow
		

				

						 ~ Byungafallgren			 ~ 2 Comments					

				

		






Shadow 
(From Substance, Shadow, and Spirit, 
by Tao Yuanming.)

There is no way to preserve life. 
Drugs of immortality are instruments of folly.
I would gladly wander in paradise,
But it is far away and there is no road.
Since the day that I was joined to you
We have shared all our joys and pains.
While you rested in the shade, I left you a while:
But till the end we shall be together.
Our joint existence is impermanent:
Sadly together we shall slip away.
That when the body decays Fame should also go
Is a thought un-endurable, burning the heart.
Let us strive and labor while yet we may
To do some deed that men will praise.
Wine may in truth dispel our sorrow,
But how compare it with lasting fame?

"Substance Shadow, and Spirit" appears in Arthur Waley's
A hundred and Seventy Chines Poems (Alfred Knopf, 1918).
Tao Yuanming , also known as Tao Qian, is believed to have
been born in the year 365 in China. He is one of the great
hermit poets of ancient Chinese literature. He died in
the year 427.