Hemlock, 1956
A wooden door in front of everything. A door
on my country. A door on the lake. My poems
prefer wooden hunting dogs. If I say there is a
door on my heart in the poem, then there is.
Now I can open this door. The door is a short
door though. I must kneel down to crawl in, drag
my body through with my wooden elbows. I bump
into my wooden mother who is also crawling
in my heart. She smiles so large at me that her
suffering lights up the tunnel. I can now see my
whole heart, not empty as I had thought. There
are no people in it but my mother. A rotten
hemlock tree at the beginning of the aorta. A
eucalyptus at the end. Two black Allen’s
hummingbirds. She tells me to feed my father.
I don’t have the heart to tell her that near the end,
his brain had so many holes in it, you could look
right through it. I promise her that I will try to love
someone as much as I love her, so she doesn’t
spend her death alone. She hands me a Tupperware
with rice and bok choy to give to my father. I eat
the food because he must be in someone else’s
heart. Next to a fetus. I am lost in my own heart now.
I sit in the corner and count red. My mother
points me back to the door. I think I can get to
the door by the end of the next heartbreak.
on my country. A door on the lake. My poems
prefer wooden hunting dogs. If I say there is a
door on my heart in the poem, then there is.
Now I can open this door. The door is a short
door though. I must kneel down to crawl in, drag
my body through with my wooden elbows. I bump
into my wooden mother who is also crawling
in my heart. She smiles so large at me that her
suffering lights up the tunnel. I can now see my
whole heart, not empty as I had thought. There
are no people in it but my mother. A rotten
hemlock tree at the beginning of the aorta. A
eucalyptus at the end. Two black Allen’s
hummingbirds. She tells me to feed my father.
I don’t have the heart to tell her that near the end,
his brain had so many holes in it, you could look
right through it. I promise her that I will try to love
someone as much as I love her, so she doesn’t
spend her death alone. She hands me a Tupperware
with rice and bok choy to give to my father. I eat
the food because he must be in someone else’s
heart. Next to a fetus. I am lost in my own heart now.
I sit in the corner and count red. My mother
points me back to the door. I think I can get to
the door by the end of the next heartbreak.
Eucalyptus, 1940
Because I see three birds in the middle. Or three
leaves, or three wars. Calder said, When I work on
something, I have two things in mind. The first is to
make it more alive. The second is always to bear in
mind the balance of it. Each piece looks like my dead
father’s thoughts. Crossing, uncrossing,
separate, together. On the top of the mobile are six
thin shapes. On my desk, six dried eucalyptus leaves
from the dead tree. Where do Calder’s leaves end and
mine begin? When his mobile moves, the leaves on
my desk move too. In seeing his mobile, I realize the
eucalyptus never died. It is greener than ever.
Because beauty molts from its object. My eyes are
now occupied with witness, the average of everything
dead. Yet all the deaths have taken on new forms,
suspended in air, shapes never touching but in
motion. Maybe this is beauty. Maybe derailed beauty is still beauty.
When I work on something now, I have
two things in mind. The first is to make it more alive.
The second is to balance the living and the dead.
leaves, or three wars. Calder said, When I work on
something, I have two things in mind. The first is to
make it more alive. The second is always to bear in
mind the balance of it. Each piece looks like my dead
father’s thoughts. Crossing, uncrossing,
separate, together. On the top of the mobile are six
thin shapes. On my desk, six dried eucalyptus leaves
from the dead tree. Where do Calder’s leaves end and
mine begin? When his mobile moves, the leaves on
my desk move too. In seeing his mobile, I realize the
eucalyptus never died. It is greener than ever.
Because beauty molts from its object. My eyes are
now occupied with witness, the average of everything
dead. Yet all the deaths have taken on new forms,
suspended in air, shapes never touching but in
motion. Maybe this is beauty. Maybe derailed beauty is still beauty.
When I work on something now, I have
two things in mind. The first is to make it more alive.
The second is to balance the living and the dead.
White Over Red
Because my children were gone again, everyone
on the street looked like them. Three girls in
their matching pink bathing suits. I remember
the discovery that red paint plus white made pink.
At an age when we thought we could walk around
a lake forever. When we thought we could leave
it, and when we returned it would be the same.
The three girls headed West. I walked East but
my façade went West and followed the girls.
Dear mother, dear mortar. I had become the old
person going up and down the streets in circles, grieving
my sentences before I’ve written them.
Confused by how the eucalyptus tree mastered
its growing down and up at the same time.
I thought of the girl across the street with a towel
wrapped around her, how I couldn’t see the man’s
angry eyes when he was yelling at her and pounding the
steering wheel, but I knew what they looked like.
I thought of the boyfriend who had yelled at me so
many times, I wanted to marry him. I used to think
about the memory itself, but now I only think about
what my dead mother was doing at that time.
on the street looked like them. Three girls in
their matching pink bathing suits. I remember
the discovery that red paint plus white made pink.
At an age when we thought we could walk around
a lake forever. When we thought we could leave
it, and when we returned it would be the same.
The three girls headed West. I walked East but
my façade went West and followed the girls.
Dear mother, dear mortar. I had become the old
person going up and down the streets in circles, grieving
my sentences before I’ve written them.
Confused by how the eucalyptus tree mastered
its growing down and up at the same time.
I thought of the girl across the street with a towel
wrapped around her, how I couldn’t see the man’s
angry eyes when he was yelling at her and pounding the
steering wheel, but I knew what they looked like.
I thought of the boyfriend who had yelled at me so
many times, I wanted to marry him. I used to think
about the memory itself, but now I only think about
what my dead mother was doing at that time.
Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times
|
Victoria Chang’s most recent book of poems is With My Back to the World, published in 2024 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the US and Corsair in the UK. It is the winner of the 2024 Forward Prize in Poetry. She is the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and Director of Poetry@Tech.
|
