Hai Phan Poet Free verse

How Long Until Then

By Phan Tan Hai
  
There was a time you invited her to step out
from Heaven’s will, drenched in light—
where laughter drifted like clouds in a wandering sky,
where joy hovered with the fragrance of schoolyard youth,
where the two of you walked shoulder to shoulder from a small alley,
wondering how long until you could bathe again
in that predestined rain.
  
There was a time you held her hand—
those slender fingers born of a homeland never free from hunger,
your own hands a landscape of bones,
barbed-wire cuts etched deep from camp to camp,
the two of you looking at each other in the late afternoon,
wondering how long until dawn would return.
  
There was a time you sang “The Distant Love,”
your guitar sending its voice to the girl of the pine forest,
while beside you she was only a naïve city girl,
writing in her daughter’s diary each night,
wondering where she might ever speak her love aloud,
and how long until you would sing a song meant only for her.
  
There was a time you met her only at market stalls,
avoiding the cold, piercing eyes that froze the blood,
the two of you with no place to rest your heads at night,
your daily prayer simply to meet again in safety,
loving each other in a Saigon turned to ice,
wondering how long until the peaceful sun and rain
of childhood would return.
  
There was a time you urged her to run—
to leave everything behind and walk barefoot into the dawn of happiness,
where you would be together morning, noon, and night,
where she could transform into your forest of pines,
where the days would become an endless wedding of moments,
and how long until her whole life
could be an offering laid at the altar of love.
  
There was a time you brought her into the snow of Wichita,
the two of you guiding each other through fairy-tale forests of green,
where you wrote poems, stories, and sang for her,
where she told ancient tales of Dragon Father and Fairy Mother
to the children gathered around,
her tears flowing with happiness
as she remembered the childhood rain you once bathed in together—
and how long until… in the heavens of the life to come…
 
---- For the lovers Truong Van & Kim Oanh
California, Jan 6, 2023

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