late have i loved You, lately Here

lately I've been feeling like
it's taken all my life to get here,
but here I am.

night is night
day is day
sleep is death
life is breath

would each next heartbeat steadily say:
it's taken years and tears to get here
but here, I Am.

no more to roam

beauteous fields lie just before me
where the redeemed no more shall weep

i'm goin there to see my mother
she said she'd meet me when i come
i'm only goin over Jordan
i'm only goin to my home

IN IL MN WI

bare hands
bare feet
bare heart

hold fast your aim, by sun and star, be earnest and brave

May is Asian Pacific Heritage Month. I'm a heritage breed human.

It's a very exciting time to be Taiwanese American!




This new era for Taiwan, marked by Friday's inauguration of Madam President Tsai Ing-Wen, is a day my grandparents thought would never come. This mixture of disbelief and relief at the arrival of a New Day, a new political reality and peaceful governance, is a feeling-state I want to file away. For me, the hope was mostly inhaled, inherited, second-hand. Even so. Will It feel like this Then?

Were you watching this inauguration? Does it utterly bore you now? What kind of real-time witness do the heavens bear to the unfolding of earthly events?

Whatever economic sanctions, war, diplomatic consequences lie next on the horizon for Taiwan, for poking that big dragon across that strait and for daring to be herself, tell her own story to herself and to the world . . . remember this political moment. This brave and bold celebration.

approaching asymptotes

There are things you can’t reach. But
you can reach out to them, and all day long.

// Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early

a prayer for when my wings feel broken

when death and daybreak are at hand
hold on, hold out, past the agony
when you see him you will be made like him
in the light of a new day

be a well-watered garden! not a garbage can. Thank you Lord.

(of Gibran's)

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Our God, who art our winged self,

it is thy will in us that willeth.

It is thy desire in us that desireth.

It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine,

into days––which are thine also.

We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself

Thou givest us all.

Great and gracious are You God,
You bid me fly, and give me wings.

sun, sun sun here it comes. thank you for a perfect parent

Dear Mom

Baby Mama, 1963

Thank you for doing your best.

Thank you for not giving up.

Thank you for your pains.

Thank you for naming me, in three languages, after beautiful women of the King's court;

You prayed for me to be crowned in gold and clothed in indigo.

The names were prayers that I'd rise above and surpass;

Thank you for speaking 青出於藍 over me.

Thank you for loving God.

Thank you for loving the Bible.

Thank you for teaching me to pray.

Thank you for entrusting me to the care of a local church.

Thank you for urging me to press into things unseen, a spirit world.

Thank you for Guh and for commanding us to be best friends.

Thank you for giving me life, Mom. I very much like being alive.

We sent this one up for you.

Ahma and I missed you a lot these years. Your absence was felt all the time. She prayed for us, we prayed for you. I guess it kind of went something like this: