Disciple

BY CHING-IN CHEN

Don’t know when
it began, the vision.
One by one, I let go.

My husband calls me
a crazy wife, bad
mother, my father

won’t speak to me.
I did not return
for mother’s funeral,

not
tainting
her spirit.

Twenty years, my
gaze through the
keyhole. I

gave up meat
and pleasure, wanting
my strong stalks

in old age. Listening
to Teacher, my mind
approached

the tunnel, truth.
People say we are
bad, but I am

learning to be
better. My family
cannot see

I love others
like my blood.
We surround

the consulate in the
rain, a prayer
band against

torture, why we
outside the subway
station delivering

the truth. Newspapers,
blood in the photos.

I accept they
do not understand

I have spent
twenty years
like a patient farmer

waiting for rain.

Now it’s my turn

To take up the camera.

Posted by HeadStylist on February 3, 2009 in Magazine, Poetry 

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