Womb

My mother’s flesh and bones held me for nine months,

A little concave of safety and love,

Of Chinese folk songs at night

And Tangshi in the morning.

There she hugged me, put her hands on her belly

As I kicked and punched and screamed and cried.

There my grandmother housed my mother,

And my great grandmother housed my grandmother.

Oh, how unwilling I was to come out,

The warmth of her womb was just enough

To keep me from smelling the fragrant sticky rice and freshly cooked congee

My grandmother cooked each day,

Of seeing the red paper cut outs at my first Chinese new year

My mother covered the walls with.

The soft walls of the vessel were just enough,

To keep me blind and deaf to this world.

Oh it was such a shame the beauty I was missing.

When I first opened my eyes,

The light was blinding.

The first words I heard were not dialects and carved expressions,

But rather unfamiliar sounds.

Words and letters,

Not strokes and characters.

I was held tighter and more lovingly than I was held in the womb,

If that’s even possible.

In my mother’s tender arms I lay,

As she sang me Chinese folk songs and recited Songci by heart;

It was a familiar sound.

I listened as I did before.

Only now,

It’s clear.

The characters and strokes have stayed with me,

Guided me throughout the years.

I have blossomed into many flowers each bearing many petals,

All of different hues and scents, all of character.

But they all blossom from the same stem which sprouts from the same root;

My womb where I house my symbols and aromas and stories and lyrics,

My womb which I tend to and remind myself of at dusk and at dawn,

My womb which I preserve and protect like the guardian I am,

Like my mother cared for her womb and me.