Ode to an 80-year-old Chinese: Climbing Sacramental Street (A Poem)

The burden of time
Gets heavier
With each step uphill.

I need to go home
To my tiny home
In this foreign land.

I want to go home,
But where is my home-home,
To which my heart belongs?

I must climb the hill,
Against the gravity of
Age and sorrows –

A thousand sad tales,
Like the Yangtze River
Flowing Eastward….

Where is my homeland?
Where is the laughter
Of children flying kites?

Where is my homeland,
Where neighbors eat together
After a long hard day?

Every cell of mine
Cries desperately for oxygen
And for my motherland.

Shall I lean on my lonely cane,
Or cast my fate into the wind?
Shall I sit down and watch the sunset?