Delta

A landscape is mined in more ways than one of emerald strangeness What unfurled in silence may soon rupture a birth place Like cicadas, we return after thirty years, legs long, bellies full unlodged from silt remains Rivers deposit ancestors into our dreams as faces of light In our absence, new houses grew among old stones that did not ash I brim with utterances insistent as weeds unintelligible to me Streets and shops still bear my mother's name as if they know meSitting up in bed, elders reach out and call me cháu though I do not know them