Skip to main content

Ways of Talking

By Ha Jin

We used to like talking about grief
Our journals and letters were packed
with losses, complaints, and sorrows.
Even if there was no grief
we wouldn’t stop lamenting
as though longing for the charm
of a distressed face.

Then we couldn’t help expressing grief
So many things descended without warning:
labor wasted, loves lost, houses gone,
marriages broken, friends estranged,
ambitions worn away by immediate needs.
Words lined up in our throats
for a good whining.
Grief seemed like an endless river—
the only immortal flow of life.

After losing a land and then giving up a tongue,
we stopped talking of grief
Smiles began to brighten our faces.
We laugh a lot, at our own mess.
Things become beautiful,
even hailstones in the strawberry fields.


Ha Jin, “Ways of Talking” from Facing Shadows. Copyright © 1996 by Ha Jin. Reprinted with the permission of Hanging Loose Press.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MICE at Apsara Angkor Resort and Conference Center

Photo: Standard room; bath MICE stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conventions and Exhibitions. It’s an important industry because  MICE  visitors are usually on business and often spend more than leisure travelers. Meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions, or Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Events (MICE) is a type of tourism in which large groups, usually planned well in advance, are brought together for a particular purpose. Meeting  – Is a general term indicating the coming together of a number of people in one place, to confer or carry out a particular activity.  Incentive  – Meeting event as part of a programme which is offered to its participants to reward a previous performance. Conference  – Participatory meeting designed for discussion, fact-finding, problem solving and consultation. As compared with a congress, a conference is normally smaller in scale and more select in character – features which tend to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cause and Effect

It's because the earth continues to wobble on its axis that we continue to stumble down the streets of the heart. It's because of the loneliness of the first cell trying to swim through its primordial pool that we are filled with a kind of galactic fear. For example: one moment a rocket falls capriciously into a square. Another moment, a rogue wave turns over the fishing boat whose crew leaves their memories floating like an oil slick that never reaches shore. In this way we understand our dying loves scratching at the door. In this way, each love creates its own theory of pain. Each love gnaws the derelict hours to the bone. But because there are so many blank spaces in history we still have time to write our own story. Wittgenstein said our words have replaced our emotions. He never understood how we have to cleanse ourselves of these invisible parasites of doubt and fear. We might as well worry about the signals from dead worlds wandering around the universe forever. Think i...
1 comment
Read more

Phrases for Public Speakers at Sea

by M. B. Powell We ought, first of all, to note her oceanic eyes flecked with sea wrack. And we should pause to consider the wavy wilderness of her damp hair. I will not dwell on her cheeks ruddy under my thumbstrokes. I will not attempt to explain the shapely abalone shells of her ears. I wish to call your attention to the cunning animal of her mouth, muscular. I wish to say something about the mollusky dark language of her kisses. I am obliged to mention her sudden breasts, breaching, rhythmic. And I am perfectly astounded at her finger charting my lips round her nipple. Here, in this connection, let us notice her nipple against the roof of my mouth. Here, in passing, let us observe ...
2 comments
Read more