Chen-ou Liu
Ajax, Ontario, Canada

A Transplanted Life

Since I opened the pages of Being and Time, his words, "Death is a way to be, which Dasein takes over as soon as it is," have lingered in the back of my mind for a week, like a silent check on my immigration dream: being a poet who can write in an adopted tongue and find his own way by moonlight.

At twilight, while walking on a wooden path around Lake Ontario, I hear the sound of the grass growing beneath my feet, and the air is filled with the scent of wild flowers. Just a stone's throw away, two seagulls take flight for the lake.

dewdrops on a leaf
the notes of an erhu
come from afar

Author's Note: Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, translated by Macquarrie, John, and Edward Robinson, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978, p. 289.

Editor's Note: "Dasein" is a German word which literally means "being there" often translated in English with the word "existence." Wikipedia, Nov.15, 2012.