Mid-Autumn Festival

You were a simple girl in China
With big, inquisitive eyes and black hair
When your mother told you the story
On moonlit nights standing in the kitchen
Fixing your bowl of steamed rice.

Her eyes were sad,
Her hands folded in resignation,
As she spoke of Chang-ur,
The beautiful princess
Who feared getting older
And so, like a Chinese Prometheus,
Stole something from heaven,
A youth potion that the Emperor of Heaven
Had given her famous husband.

The medicine worked
And Chang-ur became China’s symbol
Of youth and beauty.
But when the Emperor of Heaven
Learned what Chang-ur had done
He punished her,
Forcing her to go to live
In a palace on the moon
With a white rabbit as her sole companion.

Only once a year
On a full moon in autumn
Did the Emperor let Chang-ur leave the palace
And step out amid milky clouds
In her brilliant gown –
Strips of silk and satin --
Waving in the lunar winds
And look down on her relatives on Earth
Sending out her spirit to connect
With the people she loved
And had lost.

And so, it became a custom in China
For people to celebrate Chang-ur’s appearance
During the mid-autumn festival
To drink and eat moon cakes
In honor of their lovely, lonely princess.

You believed that story, dear one,
Treasured it as you grew into a lovely princess yourself,
Met and married a Texan
Moving half-way around the earth
To a dusty Texas town
The small, wood-frame house
With your books and mementos,
The photos of you in silky traditional costumes
The little garden in back
That you planted yourself.

When I look up at the moon on autumn nights,
I think of you, beautiful one,
Your dark, tear-filled eyes
And your big Chinese heart,
Beating so loud
I can hear it here in Dallas
More than 100 miles away.