Chinese New Year Eve <br />i would always hear those banned <br />crackers blasting away <br />the old year at the stroke of twelve <br />- welcoming the new year <br />by breaking the law <br />at the first opportunity - <br />but then Chinese new year <br />is about frightening away <br />the nian monster with the ear <br />splitting sound of fire crackers <br />as well as to create all the <br />excitements for the new year <br />new year though always dawns <br />on me as if the mystical dragon <br />has swallowed its fiery ball <br />to leave the day without light and colours <br />a jazz piece without its saxophone <br />and scintillating piano notes <br />a white world without the <br />wonderful tanginess of black <br /> <br />Inspired by <br /> <br />Those Winter Sundays <br /> <br />Sundays too my father got up early <br />And put his clothes on in the blueback cold, <br />then with cracked hands that ached <br />from labor in the weekday weather made <br />banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. <br /> <br />I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. <br />When the rooms were warm, he'd call, <br />and slowly I would rise and dress, <br />fearing the chronic angers of that house, <br /> <br />Speaking indifferently to him, <br />who had driven out the cold <br />and polished my good shoes as well. <br />What did I know, what did I know <br />of love's austere and lonely offices? <br /> <br />Robert Hayden<br /><br />john tiong chunghoo<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/these-winter-sundays/
