Paper-made deliveries

Loud horns are playing funeral music in the background,

We are all in black,

Ma ma has a red string tied around her tummy.

I touch her tummy to feel the pulse inside her.

“Po po would be happy that your brother is joining us soon.”

Using his palm on one hand and his fist on the other,Ba ba is kneading very square papers.

“For po po to buy things on the other side.”

I am relieved that grandma is living elsewhere.

and Fire knows her address.

Two years later,

a VHS tape made from paper is slowly burning into ashes.

I can still read the title on the label,

“Eastern Hero (龙影侠) Episode 20” .

Gong gong has joined Po po on the other side,

the day the final episode of our favorite series played.

The Sacred Female

Yemaya, light as blue

Caresses la Arroyo Burro 

Orisha of the seas

barefoot as she twirls, eyes unseen

Beating waves call her ashore

Bend, curving, Neolithic Venus blessing

I see Krishna and her flute in ebony beauty

and Kathu, at her resting place in Meru

They make a Mandala

to fly in cyclic Airs

If the memory of my grandparents’ passing when I was a kid initiated me as an artist to explore questions about the spiritual, my granduncle’s passing earlier this year pushed me to be a better artist and a humanist.