.... and I Will Be Flying On a Broomstick

  Breathe in. When the trees and the stones start to look the same, remember that it is an illusion. And listen, the wind never carries the same message twice. Breathe out. Breathe in. Time moves slowly in the woods. I forget why I was in a hurry to get somewhere and to be someone. Breathe out. Breathe in. The woods are less scary than the world outside. Here, I can stop and think and feel. Here, I can accept that change and death are a natural part of life. Breathe out. Breathe in. Sometimes, the best way to climb a mountain is 50 steps at a time. Sometimes, the best way to see the forest is to stop often and look at the trees. Sometimes, the best way to feel alive is to notice the moment your breath becomes air. Breathe out. @ Mt. Nijyo, Nara

There was a restaurant near a busy train station. A boy and a girl sat at a corner table, facing each other. Out of the corner of her eye, the girl noticed the waiter standing by the counter. She was almost certain he was trying his best not to stare but her vision was getting blurry. She blinked quickly and took a sip of the smoothie in front of her. The lights were too bright and other people’s laughter sounded too loud inside the restaurant. The smoothie tasted too sweet and the boy felt too far away from her. She could have ordered a cup of coffee but she didn’t because she knew she would have trouble falling asleep. She would find out later that she didn’t need caffeine to keep her awake through that night and many other nights that followed. The boy looked at his watch and said, “It’s getting late. I need to go back soon.” The girl didn’t need Google Translate to know that he actually meant, “It’s time for me to leave you.” The words “Don’t go” bubbled up in her throat li

I heard about the soup made of clouds one fine afternoon over Zoom. I imagined myself drinking it And floating out of my room. Tell me how this soup is made; What kind and how many clouds will I need? Do I look for small wispy clouds or large fluffy ones that look like sheep? Let me just step out to my balcony And pluck the clouds from the sky. Oh dear, I hope I don’t need onions. When the weather is so nice, I don’t want to cry. You said it’s your favorite soup And I would love to make it for you If only we didn’t have to social distance But hopefully, things get better in June. *** AN: A while ago, a friend of mine shared that she was making a simple dish made of eggs for dinner and she called it “Cloud Soup”. I loved the name and it reminded me of a poem from my high school English text book called “Cloud Zoo” written by Norma Gillet. So, I wrote a poem similar in style to "Cloud Zoo" just for fun. 😅😁

I am not fluent in the language of flowers. When I write about them, I borrow from another language and even then, my vocabulary is extremely limited. The neighborhood explodes into colors overnight; there are yellows, pinks, blues and reds everywhere. Spring is finally here. Yes, I am a lazy writer when it comes to flowers. Just like my friends who do not know the Burmese language sees only circles, I see only colors and shapes when I look at flowers. Their meaning and symbolism are lost on me. But recently, there is a flower that has been on my mind a lot. It comes in two shades of pink and it outnumbers other flowers in the neighborhood. These pink flowers seem to be at every street corner I turn and I got curious. What secret messages do they carry? A page on the World Wide Web tells me that I am in the company of azaleas. Did you know that the azalea flower can symbolize remembering your home with fondness or wishing to return to it? To me, home is not a place but a fe

Strip away the crowded trains, the office chatter, the red and green of traffic lights at dusk and the day begins to lose its edges. Like an ice-cream that had been left too long under the sun, the day melts away into shapeless solitude, made of sunlight filtered through a curtain, a 6-tatami bedroom, an empty coffee cup, laughter and voices traveling through the ether, the sizzle of onions in a frying pan, a phone screen lighting up in the dark. A story needs a beginning, middle and end; I’m sorry but today, there is no story to tell.

The nights are colder these days. The air is crisp and the trees have more edges. I see yellow leaves everywhere – some crinkle under my feet and others cling to branches but every single one of them glow in the dark. Just a few more steps and I will reach the spot where the tree uprooted in the typhoon lies in silence. It has been in that state for two months now, unmoving like a dead insect turned on its back with legs in the air. A woman plays violin on one of the benches. Her music falls somewhere between lively and sad, making me wonder why she picked this particular one to play in a deserted corner of the park. The silver moon shines alongside the lights that adorn the castle. A few stars hang around awkwardly near groups of clouds like loners at a party. I read somewhere that some of the stars we see from earth are already dead. It makes me sad to think of them dying of loneliness. The park is mostly quiet but I can hear low murmurs of passers-by punctuated with