My mother, you see, dresses in armor
as if war waged everyday
her mind is a catapult
her expression contours
and her teeth jeers
at the end of the day she'll say, mo wakata?

sorry mother, not today

her bones juts and creaks
her body worn from strains of life
her wobbly, crooked knees strike one another
with every feeble step in strife

her cheeks cascade like eery angular cliffs
and a crow's nest of hair, wiry and black
tumbles down her head
mother, what can I do for you?

Born in Japan
and now married to a foreign land
in hands of a backwards society
who merely acts like jesting skeptics  
they treat her family as a minority
for what?

they whisper, look at her dark squinting eyes
tiny, wiry stature
and no-nonsense attitude
no, she's not cruel
she just knows better than most

but they'll never take time to look at her
or listen to her when she speaks
and at the end of the day she says , mo wakata?
I'm afraid I do not
okasan, gomennasai I say

yet grateful, I am, for the same angular eyes
wiry hair and handsome ethnicity
your iron will strives me to go farther, deeper
to explore ever crook, every
perk of what it is to be alive
I am starting to see life
with the same air of humility  

yet on those diamond occasions
when your fingernails sting of dirt
and poignant flowers barricade
the cold mess beyond
a garden of delicateness embedded in every touch
and moving with Asian maternity
stone paths weaves through
fabric of nature's vanity

her love is etched within the soil
I see her stooped body
outside my window
as she tends her garden
and at the end of the day, when she says mo wakata?

hai, mo wakata, okasaan I say

life is not a battle
but the will not to wilt away
and as you care your garden relentlessly
you were, in fact, caring for me

every flower planted in soil
no matter rain or grey smoky skies
it spreads its lovely petals
and remembers to drink in the sun
even if there is not a sun
to drink in