for Kevin Gick

as young people we are

taught to hold our tears

the feeling that could not


come to pass in the thundering

fallstreak, in piercing through virgae


we risk the jet plane flaming out

shafts of rain going sublime,


before ever touching ground

if this is dormancy, the self


unrequited, who would we be

if we became cloudburst?

consider the potted plant in the crook

whose roots could grow no deeper


its refusal to bloom & choosing

instead to shrivel,
 this is the instruction:


to pour down now and resound

Shin Yu Pai is Poet in Residence for September.

Previously: white savior industrial complex, Chiang-Kai Shek Boneyard, and in the garden of Danny Woo.