ni ke yi qu tan gang qin le

you can go play the piano now

i’d say many nights after you spent all afternoon

cooking dinner for the family

clair de lune      a quiet,

  still heart is needed

    to serenade the moon,

to be in the presence of her gentle, radiant light

you always wanted to play the piano

i could         so you asked me

all your questions &     made me master

even though i’d make fun of you:

your slow hands that spelled out each arpeggio,

 your dedication to a nonliving black & white object,

your admiration of ink on sheets of paper

that somehow produced sounds        i wonder,

    were they always beautiful in your ears?

i know i am a selfish girl

        i cried when

you taught me swimming &

skiing &     how to read my ancestor’s letters

  the months when you stayed underneath the same rooftop

felt stolen from me,

   as if i had nothing but an angry childhood

    i saw those times as moments of waste & scorned you

what did an old, graying man have in

the land of opportunity

   when he couldn’t breathe the clean air without

feeling trapped in his daughter’s house

  because to step foot out the door

meant being stared as an outsider?

being a teacher back in china helped,       didn’t it?

    to deal with foolish youth

but now we are both older,     & i think

maybe love did exist         even all those years ago

maybe only bitter feelings and ungratefulness blinded me from seeing it

   buried in chinese lesson books,

sprinkled on top of food,

    handed over in skiing poles,

       wrestled in water,

   floated through this house,

 embellished in melodies that

flowed in between us,

a little bridge connecting two

  vastly separated generations.

there is a

clear, soft

    french tune i know you’d like,

one you &   i

    would never play

but could one day listen to

& maybe as we listen to

a pianist unveil the moon’s

most treasured secrets

you’d hear my thoughts

embedded along with every calm chord,

words i’d like to hope were always there

though never spoken out loud

thank you    thank you

xie xie      

谢谢