tangerines on a summer morning

a faint voice, a quiet ripple

i feel like my homeland has abandoned me,
making me a stranger everywhere,
visiting me in my dreams to remind and haunt me of what once was,
still lingering but never hugging
as if my own shadow, my own past
bothers to be around me,
leaving me with nothing but empty hands devoid of love.

i stand here -
a faint voice,
a quiet ripple
and i call out to the paddy fields I spent my childhood in,
to the river that once flowed in me swiftly,
to the house that taught me faith first
before telling me to join hands and pray