Rosa

i have this little dog

named rosa

everyday i wake up

and i love her

alex tells me: “maybe if

you learned to love yourself

a fraction as much,

you’d be happy”

happy people do not make

good poets

good musicians

good koreans

and besides,

i cannot learn

what they

do not teach

when we hit "play"

there is no philosophy

sweeter than the curls

of harmonies between

the five, six, seven,

eighteen, three hundred,

five and a half million,

eight billion breaths

role models

it is autumn in los angeles

bright and sunny

i read mary oliver on the porch

i stare at the hills and think

of that silver woman

in her golden years

pressing pearls on the page

fixing diamond thoughts in wood

will i ever be that wise

that elegant?

in my mind i am

forever just a child.

the grace of our mothers

and our grandmothers

more radiant than jewels

more shimmering than metals

it is perhaps like the autumn sun

in los angeles