Search & Recovery
By Shin Yu Pai
For James Kim (1971 — 2006)
it could have
happened to any
of us
a wrong turn
down a logging road
tires tunneled
into snow
a man’s undying
love for his children
moves satellites
maps aerial images
eighteen care packages
dropped over 16
miles of the Siskiyou,
bearing handwritten
notes from a father
to his son
the signs
you left for those
who came after you
a red t-shirt
a wool sock,
a child’s blue skirt
layers of a life,
stripped down to
a family’s fate —
the weight of being
unseen — to travel
a path back to
what you knew
at birth, the warmth
of being held close
brought home
Copyright Credit: Shin Yu Pai, "Search & Recovery" from Adamantine. Copyright © 2010 by Shin Yu Pai. Reprinted by permission of White Pine Press, www.whitepine.org.
Source: Adamantine (White Pine Press, 2010)