Landscapes of the Mind, a Poem by Tammy Ho Lai-ming

Inventing words
To describe geographic features of the mind.

One word ends with the consonant /k/,
Sharp and quick,
Explains the plateaued mind:
When it rains, you look forward
To the jogging sun to shine again through the rims
Of rippling & scrambled clouds.

Another word has a long vowel in the middle,
Speaks of the wide oceans in the mind,
Where you can stretch your spirits & be generous.
Joy is all yours
When your sister becomes honest;
And confesses
In youth, too jealous, she stole your
pearl necklace, a gift from a dying aunt;
Now it looks delightfully relevant & modest
On your wrinkled neck.

One word, bi-syllabic, tells the moment of
Sudden realisation of constant luck,
Like a magnificent explosion of a volcano:
A train is approaching to carry you
(And your bagful of fresh cherries),
Across the country and one small desert,
To witness the birth of your
Third grandson.

Copyright 2009, Tammy Ho Lai-ming. © This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.

Tammy Ho Lai-ming is a Hong Kong-born writer currently based in London. She is the editor of Hong Kong U Writing: An Anthology (2006) and a co-editor of Love & Lust (2008). She is also an assistant poetry editor of Sotto Voce Magazine and a founding co-editor of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal. More about Ho at www.sighming.com.