Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Canadian/British Couple Moves to Canada After 20 Years in Hong Kong” by Kate Rogers, which first appeared in Poetry Pause in March 2020.

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Canadian/British Couple Moves to Canada After 20 Years in Hong Kong

By Kate Rogers

We journey towards a home

not of our summer.

Its winter trees will stiffen our bones.

Its rocks are sharp as teeth

in an avalanche. Pebbles stare.

Good fortune gifts us this arrival

carried on feet worn flat by roads

that led to every destination but this one.

 We journey towards a home

where we hope the full moon

will halo our heads,

mythical ancestors

will applaud us. Our migration

displaces no one.

 We aren’t running for our lives, as Darwish was,

but nevertheless, there is glory.

 The frozen lake grinds sand beach

from stone. Tropical fruits

hard and green. We will suck juice

from the thin rind

of the winter sun.

Of our new home we will see only difference.

We will fall, we will fall,

until we learn to skid and steer,

until we learn to walk lightly

on snow’s thin crust,

inhale the blades

of skinning knives, exhale clouds.

 Until our souls drift over

from the old land

in their own good time.

Only then can this become home.

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Copyright © Kate Rogers

Previously published in The Meaning of Leaving (AOS Publishing 2024). First appeared in Poetry Pause on March 6, 2020.

Kate Rogers’ latest poetry collection is The Meaning of Leaving (AOS Publishing). She is also co-author of the chapbook Homeless City. Kate won the 2023 subTerrain magazine Lush Triumphant Award for her suite of five poems, “My Mother’s House.” Her work recently appeared in Where Else: An International Hong Kong Poetry Anthology. Kate Rogers is a Co-director of Art Bar, Toronto’s longest running poetry series.

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