Original poem "You Planted a Blood-Red Rose in the Palm of Your Hand for Me"

"Written for Father"

They all say I was your lover in a past life

With a strange, unfinished bond

On that shy moonlit night

I cried myself hoarse

Riding the tide to your shore

You fished out my soaking self

Like finding a pearl of a thousand years, rare beyond measure

Bending down your tall frame

Lowering your noble head

Cradling me in your palm

Holding me up

Kissing me

Granting me a love deep as the sea

And kindness heavy as a mountain

No wind to invade

The waves calm and peaceful

More than twenty years of raising me

Your little girl has just grown up

You toiled for me

Calla lilies of callus blooming thick in your palm

Gazing at my long hair flowing

Too strong to dare to wither

A handful of callus flowers, a bouquet of love's roses

One rose loves me with a lifetime of deep passion

Your body

Tempered by suffering

Thin and gaunt, too frail to withstand the wind

My kind father

In this life your daughter has no chance

To repay the kindness of your raising me

In the clear breeze

Your towering figure fades into the distance

Standing on that holy lotus at the edge of the sky

I hold the obituary in grief

Light that blood-devouring rose

Draft it into a funeral eulogy

To mourn, after the callus flowers have withered

The immortal soul within that lingering fragrance