Pearl on Earth

                   To Pearl S. Buck

                             Soreness is Moon

                             Onto land is downfall of tears

                             Where pearls shine

Time is washed

You became transparent

Under the wreath of ivies and flowers

         buried suspicious silence

Sun combs through trees

         as mom grooms your hair

         making chirping birds jealous

         They cast peeks

Onto face of the tome stone

          A heavy clock with no arms

May all evaporated shadows condense?

May passed time be rewound?

While applauses rusted

          an antique typewriter

Old words still throb up from fresh papers

But dreams became nomadic

Wander along the broken Great Wall

After the chase of uprising red tide

Flee, again, flee

Under blossoming peach trees

Wang Lung and O-Lan are grazing

            a water bufflo

A road from the hill of golden crops

May come down old friends from oversea

Oh Pearl

Twilight quenched the last slice of sunshine

            in greyish clouds

Tonight, the wide Pacific Ocean

            must be so cold, so distant

The pouring down of moon light

             weep for your home town

             weep for you never come back

You are high in heaven

              like a kite in the sky

              shining from the power of thunder

              spread mild fluorescence

Oh Pearl,

In front of your old house

Your children are singing

Hear their mirth, hear their mirth

They are coming from around the world

Someday and somewhere

If breeze erodes all rocks

If the sea is dehydrated

If the last rainbow fades in the sky

Still shining is Pearl, for the old, old

             Good Earth.

Written in summer 2013, at Pearl S. Buck's House, Perkasie, Buck's County, Pennsylvania