Rains

Whene'er it rains, it comes and pours;
comfort he finds in dampened floors,
wide open windows, roofs all wet,
to allow in his ways be set
to live a life contained indoors.

Denied so, he awake ignores
soft sunsets he in dreams explores,
For hard defined is one's regret—
whene'er it rains.

Of memories he keeps harsh stores,
hurts 'neath a sun he still adores;
His hopes outside he does sublet,
but here he eases a little yet
whene'er it rains.

Panning

My eyes are too wide for the Chinese
I looked past the Golden Mountain with ease.
I should have been made a Hannibal of words
And broken my tusks upon the gates—
Held high laurel conquests with hands
long and white, cold and soft, my Tower of Ivory.
But veins in this land still value
as veins of my blood still value.
So reality: Il faut manger
So I go panning.

Tree

Indifference grows hard upon me.
It makes my skin thick with unfeeling;
it stands me tall and unyielding, than I ever was;
and it roots my feet in ground.
In the silence I find in my limbs,
though winds may blow to and fro
and this foliage of burdens may sprout upon me dense and fruitful—
I am unmoved.

For strength alone I grew into a tree
and shed the little that was left for me.
But for the forest to which I grew, not to be seen,
here I hide myself, and that I had wanted to have been.