J.L. Chen

fire horse, 丙午

there was a guzheng playing between boarding calls at YVR, red lanterns strung above duty-free wine, and beneath the glass floor, fish circling
under Indigenous sky —

The sun refused to set across the pacific. It just kept stretching itself thin and gold against the window, the way memory does when you’re between the place you come from and the place you’re going.

Seoul was cold and blue and full of history. The palace drums. Changing guards. Silk catching winter light on stone paths older than the idea of countries. At Jongmyo, the spirit road runs straight—
they say the fire horse comes once every sixty years. the last time was 1966. the next, 2086. most of us will only live inside this one.

and tonight, somewhere — a grandmother in Shanghai, a father in New York, a child in Seoul are looking up at the same new moon
and calling it by different names
for the same ache, the same hope.

We are brief. The tradition is long.
Longer than any border. Older than any passport. And it finds us, wherever we go.

新春快乐 ·
happy lunar new year 🐴

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#LunarNewYear #YearOfTheFireHorse #poetofinstagram #diaspora #asiancanadian