poet/Q Barnes
Some days we’re on the street, and see familiar faces;
Feeling encouraged and excited, our heart suddenly paces!
In our best native tongue we say “Hello! I can’t believe this!”
but all they’re able to reply is pure authentic English.
Some days, when lots of us are gathered all together,
A sea of common skins that seemed all born in the same weather;
We feel at last we’ve met the local family that we seek
But they don’t understand a single Chinese word we speak.
If you have never met them in the land of America, then
you have no idea how awkward it can be
that though they look like me
they don’t speak like me
They are Chinese, but being American is all they know
maybe decedents of immigrants from one hundred years ago
or Chinese orphans adopted by an American
Whatever the case US is their native land
Orphan, a title for a moment of their lives
Once adopted, not alone in this land where life thrives
Taken in by loving parents from America
in a better warmer home, in which to base all their nostalgia
84,000 orphaned Chinese children live in this blessed country.
They were once in a divided orphanage,
but now live in the United States with you and me,
Receiving the best education and caring, that any child can hope to ever see.
Their adopting parents live everywhere within America’s extents
Collecting lost pearls left behind by every orphan’s birth parents;
Although their hair and skin are different they now share a tight, strong bond.
After twenty years of love and care they’ve now been reborn and beyond.
Pearls scattered across this earth
Will one day be reunited;
Broken Families isolated around the world
can resume love reignited.
Home country is a place sometimes far and sometimes near
Home town is a memory in a travelers’s dream that constantly appears
Father and mother is a history that can never fade out from a son.
The bonds created by such beings can never be undone.
We give love and must spread love,
So the world will sense and deliver more love,
So that each person can receive more love;
For we are together because of love,
and because we are together…
we exist in love.
2/18/16