Kept safe in five syllables

                                    Photo Credit: Lynne-Marie Eteuati

Kept safe in five syllables

a haiku for my

faraway parents
        alofa tele atu

Parents in Japan

See cherry trees blossoming

Here grandchildren bloom

Fleeting beauty bolts

past like childhood much too fast

and we clutch at both

constrained by ingrained

tautua mo Samoa

My father’s duty

We know no beauty

can compare but true service

is a sacrifice

and both of them have

always been so generous

of spirit and self

honour them knowing

their Facebook smiles do not show

they left their hearts here

Ta - ni - fa -te - a

Kept safe in five syllables
Ti - gi - i - la - gi

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's postscript: I honour my parents and I honour the work they do for our country, and I have the deepest respect for the beautiful cultured country that they do that work in (which is why I clumsily tried to use the haiku- a Japanese art form).  But we miss them- terribly.