Growing up, my dad’s cousin, his wife and their daughter were the only family we had in Canberra. We only caught up with them once or twice a year, typically at a restaurant for Chinese New Year. I cherished those occasions﹣and not only because they were bookended by two of my favourite pancakes, commencing with Peking duck pancakes and concluding with red bean paste pancakes. … Continue reading Miscellaneous shades of grief
People are often surprised and curious that I am fluent in Spanish. It is a random language for an Australian – let alone an Asian Australian – to dedicate themselves to. We’re a multicultural but otherwise monolingual kinda nation and learning Spanish presents you with just the one job prospect: teaching Spanish. I enjoy surprising and impressing people with this. I enjoy that it’s a … Continue reading The real reason I speak Spanish: how trifles can transform your life
I.
It was perfect in a bittersweet way
The overcast day
The fresh flowers
The waiting
The shades of black and grey
The Padre Nuestro
The father’s chanting
II.
They ushered him through a maze
of flagstones well-polished by the varnish of water
and the heavy footsteps of generations of mourners.
For fifty pesos a stranger sang
as we showered him with rose petals and rain.
Amidst her wailing and her brothers’ silent despair
and the cement mixed and laid thick to immortalise him,
the sky stops crying and its blue eyes blink
and I, for a moment, stare into eternity,
into sorrow, into loss, into hope.
Avenues upon avenues of memories
in this city of the departed;
yards and yards of carnations
doing their best to defy time –
but who can resist?
Grief made her embrace linger, made us angels
without wings, and stranded on earth,
but angels nonetheless.
III.
Another Padre Nuestro
Another sigh
Another moment without him
The first of too many. Continue reading Victor
⎯suansita⎯ 