One day when I was a child
My favorite pear tree fell
I found it strange to know it’s fruit
When I’d only seen it bloom

Split in half by the weight of ice
Right down the middle
A crack of thunder as it went
It was killed by the rain and cold

I used to rest in it’s shadow
Infertile but gracious to me
As the blooms floated down
Like flurrying springtime snow

Strong seeming and lovely smelling
A father in spirit and in truth
Winter killed what spring made beautiful
It held no children but me

Birds fly
So do I--
Lifted by your hands.
Paper *****,
Wrestled falls,
Laughter with no end.

Scars earned,
Lessons learned,
Gearing me for life.
Always here,
Support clear,
Pillar of my life.

Dear dad,
Your contagious beams,
Spread through my body,
Infect my cheeks.

You reflect the day-
The soul of a child,
In the body of a man-
Life's not kind.

Yet you shine,
As a movie critique,
With zero dad ***,
And a good physique.

However busy,
You may be,
You leave it all aside
For our family.

Very grateful we must be.
Not all heroes are caped, you see,
Because dad,
You are our hero in a lungi!

Hear the call, ring around the corridor
I’m without one, what a bore
Gray walls thou don’t know my love
I wear blood on my hands like a glove
I know you’re soon to be here, my sweet
I’ve got a little thing for you, a treat
Remember how I love you so
I’ll tell you then to lower your bow
I did it for you, now do you understand?
This, all to us, lover, isn’t it grand?
We can be together, forever
I know I love you because I will **** for you
What ever would you do,
For the love, do you give upon to me?
If not, trust you would be free
Free from me and never again
Will you ever, ever have to bend
But know, the love is great and yours
Keep it well, let it fill you, let it pour
I’ve left you, but I’ve never gone
We can be together, to raise our fawn
That life for us, now open and allowed
Your father would never have bowed.

It’s Thursday morning, usually no one’s favorite, but this one seems sugary new, as if beamed in from a different, better universe. The clouds look fluffy and freshly washed.

Even the freshmen, who’re everywhere, multiplied, as if they’d been cloned overnight, seem less dramatic with their endless droning-on about insignificant political points.

Could this explosive sunniness be because midterms were stupidly easy and spring break is one day away? Hmm, maybe, but it’s not the whole story. Peter (my bf) will be here tomorrow night and for 18 romantic days (and nights) we’re going nowhere except New Haven night spots and my dorm room. I’m so happy, in a pure pop euphoria way, I almost feel guilty about it.

It’s 45°, the high will be 52°. New Haven’s warming up, I think we have winter on the run, next stop:spring, baby. Sunny, Lisa, Leong and I are breakfasting together before we scatter, like Confetti, for our day.

We’d picked a table by the windows, because it looked relatively clean. We dumped our stuff and began raiding the breakfast bar. All of the choices look depressingly healthy—does anyone else miss grease for breakfast—you know, bacon? Anyone? Oh, well, at least there’s ‘specialty coffee’.

After we’d all settled in, we were quiet. Most were visualizing their day, I supposed. I wasn’t. I was thinking about last night. Last night, Leong was making Chinese soup—she’s a gourmand—and teaching us how to make it. It’s elaborate, and as she worked she married the instructions with details from her life growing up in China.

Like how, back in Macau, they lived in this great house with many servants (her dad is an industrialist) but her grandmother insisted on raising chickens and growing a garden—and somewhere in the mix she added, with heart-on-her-sleeve vulnerability, “My dad doesn’t know how to show his love.”

And we were like, “Oh, wow, Ok, that got real - quickly.” It seemed sudden and off-kilter, at first, but as we talked it out, I decided that there was something kind of poetic about using food to talk about the emotional barriers you’re facing with your Chinese father.

“I need some high energy, smashing,” Sunny confided, after her first few sips of coffee.
“It’s 8:23am,” Leong moaned, closing her eyes as if to say, “It’s too early to start.”
“Who says femininity is shy and retiring?” Lisa asked, rhetorically.
I made a face. The pastry I’d gotten was stale. I dropped it, but I didn’t spit out my first bite. “It’s the non-stop of disappointing little things that **** our joy,” I stated sagely, around the stale mush.
“Epicureanism?” Sunny asked no one in particular. But no one entered the debate.
.
.
Songs for this:
You Can Have It All by Yo La Tengo
Cry! by Caroline Rose

The memories I had of my father are
The following as I look at the night sky
And the Big Dipper, I remember my father
Teaching me about the constellations,
Planets and other things in the night sky
As I read a book I remember him
Teaching me  to read though Stephen King’s
The stand, and goosebumps
As I watch tv or a movie
I remember him teaching me
About the appreciation of the
Performing arts
This are lessons I will never forget
As he is in the spirit world!
Thank you Peter Melanson

Because I can not bury my father in the sky
I burn him and spread his ashes on the ground.

He loved birds yet did not feed them crumbs—
just  caught them in the color of their being.

He would watch the mower plow the field,
watch the hand fill  the feeders with seed

feeling the tranquility of the man-made pond
drift towards him as he pulled the blanket from

his chin and felt the breeze ruffle his baldness,
the bed as high to the trees as a house allows—

all the doors open to the day
                                  the night

the house receiving guest after guest,
the tables inside-outside spread for feasts,

until the last smoke of him singes my nostrils
settles in my lungs (this strange son of his),

floats above the branches into every nest,
leaving behind the clock spring in the fire

this nonparent of the future, this fruit
of his, leaving no seeds of his own.