Today Everything is Connected by Tung-Hui Hu

Today Everything is Connected
Tung-Hui Hu

By a single principle: guilt by association,
For this reason, when it is revealed
That we sometimes have trouble distinguishing
Between the noise and the shape of things,
The hand from the fist, the gestures of love
From the gestures of waiting, it means that
Anyone may be accused at any time.
Simply raise your index finger and point
Across the room and someone will come over

To take your order. Although it is not polite
I am going to accuse the sun of failing to rise
During off-hours. I will accuse those handing out
Lemons and onions of asking for it.
I will even accuse myself of conspiring
To sell sadness as a small, mysterious gift.
The only animal you can trust is the woodpecker
Who points repeatedly to its tree and says
Each time You are here. My love, you are here.

MARGINALIA

1.
Day 13 of The Sealey Challenge. Today’s offering is Greenhouses, Lighthouses by Tung-Hui Hu.

2.
Reading this book, I feel the pull of what lies ahead and the weight of what remains unsaid. The poet has created a space where language itself seems to grow, to take on new shapes and meanings on the page. There’s a quiet yearning in his words, a desire to connect with something larger than the self.

3.
There’s a texture to the language that feels almost tangible—his writing holds a tension between presence and absence that keeps the reader hovering in that in-between space.

4.
What strikes me most is the way these poems resist easy interpretation. They invite you to linger, to sit with the uncertainty. There’s a sense of something slowly unfurling, something that asks you to look closer, to question, and to find your path through the fog.

5.
But whether the poems offer clear answers or not, perhaps the hope is that we let ourselves be nudged, to keep moving forward, to trust in the journey, and to find solace in the search itself.