Friday, April 1, 2022

Friday, 04/01/22: Amy Uyematsu's poem "Guanyin, Goddess of Mercy"


© 2022 marie c lecrivain



 Guanyin, Goddess of Mercy


I get more superstitious with age.

Heed the warnings of mystics and crones.

Believe less in random misfortune.

There's a mother who can stuff the devil in a bottle.


Heed the warnings of mystics and crones.

Guanyin listens to the cries of the world.

There's a mother who can stuff the devil in a bottle.

How much can she do to protect her child.


Guanyin listens to the cries of the world.

She must grow a thousand arms.

How much can she do to protect her child.

Sometimes the noise is unbearable.


She must grow a thousand arms.

To reclaim one more heart to kindness.

Sometimes the noise is unbearable.

Whose hand reaches out in the dark.

© 2022 Amy Uyematsu


Amy Uyematsu is a sansei (third-generation Japanese American) poet and teacher

from Los Angeles. She has six published collections - the most recent being That 

Blue Trickster Time (2022). Her first poetry collection, 30 Miles from J-Town,

won the 1992 Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize. Active in Asian American Studies

when it first emerged in the late 60s, she was co-editor of the widely used UCLA

anthology, Roots: An Asian American Reader.

 

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