EVERYDAY I WAIT FOR A JOY

Everyday I wait for a joy:
to check mail in my mailbox.
The white envelope is Mom's letter.
The blue one is my darling's.
The striped one is my old friend's.
The yellow one is just the bill.
And if it's just commercial flyers,
they are still better than the empty mailbox.
I speak a strange language* in my workplace,
then speak nothing when I am at home.
Reading their letters is like listening to my relatives,
writing them is like talking to them.
I am like an uprooted plant.
The old soil is the mail.
The letters are my only joy now,
so I can survive the long wait.**

Hoang Hai Ho
Toronto 12/1986

* English
** The wait for reunion with my family who is still back home.