Karen Jiang

A Yuzu Tree

If one day, at spring’s soft edge, a yuzu tree is planted,
Sloped along the mountainside
In the embrace of full sun—living, breathing soil
Pruned and protected as snow seeks to rest on its shoulders,

Branches will unfurl bearing good fruit—
Are we not unlike this tree?

Left unattended as seasons transpire
In severe frost, measured dissipation
Brittle in the gentlest of winds,
A soft cry in silence, unseen.

On your open palm, I leave a single yuzu seed.
If, in the coming spring, you choose to root and tend this tree,
Then, in its fragrant, dappled shade and slow-mellow fruit
I will be here.

A Camellia Bud

When you open this letter

The snow will have melted away.

Inside, a camellia bud—silent, expectant—waits,

Gently wrapped in ice,

A sunset of sanguine petals, suspended

If frozen, will we live to see it bloom?
When the last ice melts,
Time will reclaim what I tried to preserve.

Should you part with the thawing snow,

I wish, one day, you will find a similar letter

One you can keep and grow.

Wisteria and Dust

Branches, roots, streams of undulating light,
A wisteria beyond my age sits,
Lending a petal
Two hundred petals
In the wind, a single soul
Rests in its own shadows.
Where is time?
Microseconds amble by.
Does all life come from dust?
All life returns to dust.

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