White Tulips and Dandelions

“To bloom beautifully like a flower.”

Parents imbue their hopes when naming their children.

What flowers did they mean when there are whole worlds and languages they speak?

Did they mean rose, the flower that embraced the meaning of love?

Or yellow carnations and of their regrets and disappointment?

Or lotus flowers and their enlightenment and rebirth?

Roots take place, stems grow, leaves sprout, and flowers blossom.

What is my root, as an immigrant who no longer belongs to their homeland?

Perhaps what makes a flower beautiful is not the flower itself, but its eternal efforts to blossom despite all.

As the wind blows and the drought has its hand in all, the petals loosen.

And yet it will try once again and again for eternity, no matter how many petals have come and gone.

To bloom beautifully like a flower.

I breathe out my wish, that the language that it speaks is forgiveness for our fallen petals.

Year of the Snake