Waiting, Leaving
by Felix Chow

They’re still waiting on the platform
frozen on an anxious perch
Gazing down tracks of salvation
Choked by a soundless howl

Evening comes and they must go
Smokestacks screaming in the wind
The train arrives. The man departs
his home in search of hope

A longing glance. A hug. A kiss.
His only child. His sobbing wife.
Fingers locked. They’re holding on.
They know he must let go.

The home they have, it’s now too strange
Blurred as the pea-soup fog
Peace had gone. Along with it, hope
The dragons loom above

The man looks back. His family stays
enframed by smoke and sound
His gaze unbroken. His heart less so
He leaves, apart, his soul

His hearth and home.His only ties
sole joy in his simple life
So small they shrink. Until they’re but
A sandspeck in the sky

The man stays put. Old shapes collide
An iron mailbox rusting red
The sandy streets he used to roam
The whitewashed shops. His crumbling home

His humble house, the plywood door
The copper plantpots drenched with sun
The tattered beggars wanting alms
The plastered signs in native tongue

“What is the best we leave behind?”
He asks himself. It’s far too late
Like dew beneath the desert sky
His hometown disappears

He makes his way. With aching heart
His heaving ribcage screams for love
His family he left, alone
To face the dragons above

Through the train he stumbles on
Sorrow plastered to his chest
In the cars, soujourners too
Sullen faces share his hurt

Must not look back. His family waits
Thoughts of reunion spur him on
A happy fate. A home anew
This hard road must be run

The way is right. Trust it. Walk.
Walk on fast, walk straight and true
From home of old. To home anew
To leave is the only way.
 

Felix Chow is a second-year student majoring in English Studies and Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. He started writing poetry after coming across Allen Ginsberg’s work, and is now trying to make it a major element of his life. His poetry has been featured in Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine and Zolima CityMag, and he was the winner of the Merit Prize in the 2016/17 Hong Kong Budding Poets Award. He is also an active member of Poetry OutLoud Hong Kong and was featured at the Cha Reading Series.