• Sunlight streams in silky ribbons,
    Shining on smoky incense,
    Crimson candles flickering aside,
    Burning atop the sacred altar.
    There she stood,
    A hunched figure by the altar.
    Joss paper she is folding,
    Preparing it as an offering,
    To the being.

    Tea is served
    To the red board,
    carved with name of the Kitchen God.
    Fruits served on scarlet platters,
    A vase of chrysanthemums is on display.
    Seen also is the roasted pig,
    Reserved for auspicious days.

    Forty years of prayer,
    Hoping for a life that is better.
    Forty years of disappointment.
    But still she prays.

    As the last piece of paper is placed,
    Her work is done.
    She waits.
    As the minutes race,
    and the candles drip
    their last tears of sympathy
    For such blind devotion.

    The time has come,
    The papers lit,
    Kindled the fires of hope.
    Silently she stands,
    As flames devour her work bit by bit,
    Leaving just the ashes of dreams.

    Swiftly, the wind rushes
    Gathering the ashes,
    And scatters them
    To the brooks and streams.

    Silently, brook flows into river,
    River flows unceasingly
    Into the vast emptiness of the sea,
    Filled with the sorrows of those
    Whose dreams are unfulfilled.