Words That Burn

To My Father, by Wing Tek  Lum (1946-)

In our store that day

they gathered together

my grandfather among them

each in his turn

to cut off their queues:

the end of subservience.

They could have returned

the Republic soon established

or, or on the safe side,

waited a year

to grow back that braid.

No matter, they stayed.

Your father was young

and shrewd: the store flourished,

then the crops, the lands.

 

Out of your share

you sent us to the best schools;

we were to follow the dynasty

set by the Old Man.

But he had died

Before I was born, his grave

all I could pay homage to.

I was freed from those old ways.

Today, unbraided,

my hair has grown long

because and in spite of those haircuts

you and he took.