These poems were commissioned by Day Eight within a project funded by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of AAPI Affairs, directed by Regie Cabico.
 

Her Tao of DC
By Pacyinz Lyfoung

In another life, she used to be a nail that stuck out,
someone who spoke words of justice in a sea of silence.

In this city, her spine tingled,
dazzled by flying crows, king pigeons and fireflies,

and here,
she has spent years defying gravity and exploring her spine.

Still, like a mountain, just a line shooting up
from the firmness of her ground to reach for the sky.

Quiet, like a log floating on air,
from the tailbone to the top of the head.

Open, like a puppy,
from the blooming of the chest to the vaulting of the ribcage,

which remains a stumbling block,
being a warrior no longer sure how to hold her sword.

In a sequence, she balances like a boat,
before finding the geometry of a crab;

moving on to the shape of a turtle
flipping on its shell to circle around the cosmos;

squishing back into the warmth of its cavern,
seeking ease under the weight of the world.

To progress to bouncing back
in an arc holding everything together,

they tell her she should find Archer,
so, it’s time to read the Tao of Pooh:

an attempt to find East through the West
and vice-versa, in a bear crawl towards honey.

At first, she buckles at this look to Asia
through the western gaze,

but Western-born, there is still truth in this useful lens
to clearly see her Asian roots

across diaspora
and the western clouds of her childhood.

Holding on to books and bows,
word by word, inch by inch,

every DC morning, on yellow foam,
she flexes the Tao of her Asian American dreams.

Honeywine Global Alchemy
By Pacyinz Lyfoung

Tracking time
I pursue the perfection of public speaking

Tracing common history
I delve into the vernacular of honeywine

Not fermented with fruit from the earth
but with nectar from flowers collected by bees

Minding the ums and the ahs,
trimming the unnecessary pauses

Thousands of years-old Chinese jars boast
the oldest residues of water mixed with honey

Then the word sprinkles in myths of gods
everywhere in the world

Pre-Hindu Vedic records note honeywine
in voices singing before the Age of Books

Euphoria of a gift of honeywine/tej from the Queen of Sheba
to King Solomon intersects Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions

In Viking lore, honeywine/mead rewards fallen warriors entering
Valhalla with this ambrosia of the gods

In Viking lore, poets are born from drinking the Mead of Poetry
made by mixing the blood of the wisest of gods with honeywine

Medieval bards found inspiration in mead flasks
free-versing in lords’ halls and common folks’ taverns

Today, I am a DC Valkyrie meddling in global lore
more like a mythical Kinnary spilling silver needle tea
from the rolling hills of Xiengkhouang

Traveling our shared cosmopolitan heritage
among the crowd of international workers and locals

Training our tongues with accents from everywhere
to master the intricacies of effective communications

Sharing the journeys of honeywine
in Asian American polyglot poet fashion

Fermenting words and places,
for an alchemical reaction, becoming an invocation:

DC as an international, national, and local hub–
all those dimensions which feel like home.
 

Speaking dreams and volcanoes *
By Pacyinz Lyfoung

Biking block by block
She meditates with the wind
Brushing her ears and whispering
The dreams of bricks, whether they
Be crushed by clever landlords
Or still rising from ruins
Repossessed by People Power
Every corner has a story
Which is now her story
Movement attorney
Moving through the city’s chess board
Will this be some investor’s cold calculations
Or will this be some community’s aspirations?

Here used to be a Nigerian’s entrepreneur daily akara oyinbo crushed by white yuppy wealth
Here used to be an Ethiopian couple’s adera vacated by the same white yuppy progress
Here used to be a tug of war between a Bangladeshi building owner and a Caribbean small shop
Here is a still ongoing battle royale/jung/zhandhou between a Pakistani owner and a Chinese corner store

But here is also a cooperative home growing among the weeds
But here is also a former addicts’ rental become their co-owned home

Every block brews volcanic fires
of underground bubbly dreams and bright beginnings,
as she firewalks with them,
unafraid of flames,
descended from phoenixes,
Survivor of the CIA Secret War in Laos,
the last stand of her People for their beloved country
she will lend her sword to every struggle
for people to not lose their home
for grassroot knights to keep sparring for their grails of brick
resisting and building block by block

*Title inspired by a line from Pablo Neruda
 

To the Altars of my DC Home
By Pacyinz Lyfoung

A few fluffs of white chicken feathers
stuck on a gold and red wooden platform
with a few drops of burgundy dried blood,
below the silver sticks of burnt incense:
here dwells a Hmong man worshipping his ancestors,
all the forefathers whose spirits still protect
the family line.

Eyes closed in internal enlightenment or
bereft of life in savior’s ultimate sacrifice or
demure in virgin’s immaculate conception,
all the faces of gentle godliness:
here dwells some believer following
Siddhartha Gautama, the son of God, or
his Lady Mother.

Blood is the sacred river sanctifying
Home,
the tie to our ancestors,
heroes, prophets, and
goddesses.

The obsidian wall
sliced by a giant knife opening an underground
mass grave like a mirror missing the names of my forefathers,
winks back with my eyes from beyond
like a raven wing under the yellow sun and the blue sky,
as I run to it like a child runs back home whenever lost
and bring it flowers once a year when we remember those who sacrificed.

Always crossing the river in-between,
below the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,
under the sweet shade of an evergreen Atlas cedar,
under a bronze plaque atop a granite stone
the size of an elephant print,
there lies the forever home of the Hmong freedom fighters
who call for flowers from their children:

here dwells my blood tie to DC.
Pacyinz Lyfoung is a French-born and raised, Minnesota-grown, Hmong/Asian American woman poet, attorney and activist. She emerged as a poet among the Asian American Renaissance and the Hmong Literary Movement in MN. She has been published in the Gulf Review, the Mid-Atlantic Review, and others, and in anthologies including, Bamboo Among the Oaks: Contemporary Writing by Hmong Americans; To Sing Along The Way: MN Women Poets from Pre-Colonial Days to the Present; The Forgotten River: An Anacostia Swim Club member anthology; and, They Rise like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets.

Featured image in this post is: “Cumuls clouds viewed from above, Spain” by Alvesgaspar, 2014; license creative commons via wikimedia commons