reading between the lives and writing between the lines, XIV
O Canada! Our home and native land!
written in response to the theme for Asian Heritage Month 2022: Continuing a "legacy of greatness”
foreign experience
doesn't count in this country
he repeats ...
on the way home I feel
my feet sticking in asphalt
the Maple Leaf
flapping in summer heat ...
no Canadian experience
no job... no job
no Canadian experience
former lecturer
now my new coworker
at the cafe counter
murmuring, immigrant life
is best understood backwards
from the glass jar
I grasp coins, one day’s worth
of tips
at an upscale cafe ...
my first Canadian experience
poem after poem
I write myself, an immigrant,
into Silence --
the void place where I wait
for you, Canada, to read
FYI: The title is taken from the first line of Canada's national anthem
Added: Three Hundred and Fortieth Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary
laid off ...
drifting among strangers
six feet apart
Added: reading between the lives and writing between the lines, XV
rain-stained chalk scrawl:
this unhoused person's body
as his last address
Added: written in response both to Ottawa Citizen's May 17 opinion column: "Who won the final 2022 Ontario election debate?" and to the Apocryphal Mark Twain, who claimed, Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.
election debate
one stray barks at another
barking at another
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