I ask my mother to sing
She begins, and my grandmother joins here.
Mother and daughter sing like young girls.
If my father were alive, he would play
his accordion and sway like a boat.

I've never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace
nor stood on the great stone boat to watch
the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the p[illegible]
running away in the grass.

But I love to hear it sung;
how the water lilies fill with train until
the overturn, spilling water into water
then rock back and forth and fill with  rain.

Both women have begun to cry
But neither stops her song.

by Li-Young Lee