My Hometown

I have visited  my hometown several times,
though not in person (what a shame!).

I am unable to smell or taste it,
only watching and listening
from afar.
I shared the eyes and ears with others
whom I know not.

My virtual hometown
has a special place
in my mind and heart.
My beloved hometown,
where I was born and grew up,
learned to love and to hate,
and finally became indignant
at what I saw and experienced.

My beloved hometown
I once left behind
together with all past memories
both sweet and bitter,
both enriching and impoverishing,
always has a special place
in my mind and heart.

I saw unrolling before my eyes:
streets after streets,
almost no trees,
bicycles, buses and cars,
and streams of people,
worried parents with innocent children,
carefree youths on motorbikes,
a few poor vendors pushing their carts--

some old, some middle aged,
and all types of foreigners with backpacks on,
wearing shorts, flip flops or sandals.

I noticed occasional odd hairstyles and attires,
risky behaviors, reckless pedestrians,
impatient motorcycles and honking cars,
magnificent, luxurious hotels, crowded sidewalk restaurants,
and flashy boutiques in empty malls,
decorated with white Roman Venus replicas
or red-yellow Chinese lanterns.


In the downpours I saw
streams of people,
face covered to avoid the polluted air,
wearing black helmets and colorful rain ponchos,
waddling with their legs in grey waters
on unruly motorbikes.
I saw water splashing everywhere
as the jammed traffic of humans and vehicles tried to move on
inch by inch along the narrow winding river streets.

They have learned to live with water
years after years,
so I heard.
They are silent and resilient,
for nobody can do a thing!
So they have learned to live with water
up to their chest,
only trying to block water from the streets
with whatever they have
against the currents--
their household objects
all piled up, barely above the undulating water level.

Stagnant waters.

Frustrating.
Hopeless.

I turned off the screen.
The unbearable scenes
of my fast-expanding hometown
are still haunting my mind and heart.

Every day and night,
and even right now,
I am still seeing
my beloved hometown drowning itself
in the spinning currents of stagnant grey water.


    

  

Refugees

The little child’s lying motionless on a Turkish beach.

Waves after waves come to ask him

why he does not respond.

His red shirt, blue shorts and black sneakers,
all soaked wet, still on
his limbs dangling from the rescuer's arms.

Somewhere along the same beach

lying the bodies of his mother and his brother

waiting for him.

Another journey home
The whole family
ready to return to Kobani,
where war and deprivation is still ravaging.

Refugees in overloaded small rubber boats,

seeking a better life,
found tragic deaths.

A blurry line lies

between the good and the bad,

blocking the refugees’ blurry tearful eyes.

A blurry line lies
between the good and the bad;

Life and Death,

so intertwined.

Thursday Sept. 03, 2015
In memory of all refugees lost at sea

-----

The body of 3-year-old Syrian Alan Kurdi was found on a Turkish beach after the small rubber boat he, his 5-year old brother Galib and their mother, Rehan, were in capsized during a desperate voyage from Turkey to Greece.  They were among 12 migrants who drowned off the Turkish coast of Bodrum that day.  Alan's body was discovered on a Turkish beach in sneakers, blue shorts and a red shirt on Wednesday.

Related Links:
http://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/world/2015/09/150903_china_military_parade_socialmedia

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YURQY9xCJ8c