The Chinese Music Box, Poem
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The Chinese Music Box
中国音乐盒
zhong guo yin yue he
(The love of a life needs a life full of love
With neither one present, they both fade away)
Wayne Wilks
This is a little story I have wanted to write for some time now about a music box I purchased in Oklahoma City, manufactured in China, which I then shipped back to Shenzhen as a present for my new daughter, Wen. The box then made its way back to Oklahoma with her mother, my wife. It struck me as some sort of miracle, this traveling music box and how it was love that saw it safely across 8000 miles of ocean, 3 times, following one little girl across the globe. It now sits on little Wen’s desk, in our home in Oklahoma.
God bless: Tim Wilkinson
(Once upon a time, not so very long ago, in a far away place in a country named China, there lived a kind man, a maker of beautiful music boxes.)
Four daughters he had and a beautiful wife
All living together and sharing their life
In the mornings together, they worked and they smiled
In evenings they played, they cleaned and they schooled
At night when the light, sank down out of sight
They cooked and ate peaches with tofu and rice.
In a glen by a brook in the shade of a hill
Father built them a house and he built it quite well
In the tiny wood cabin, with a shed by the way
He built them a home with wood and with clay
And somewhere about, in China no doubt
By the brook in the shade, it stands to this day,
They six of them lived in this field all of green
With grasses and flowers and beauty unseen
Butterflies and bees danced about in the breeze
Squirrels and fat chipmunks chattered high in the leaves
Robins and Wrens, Blackbirds and Hens
Red Cardinals too would wait to begin
They gathered to sing and all would join in
To whistle a tune with the trees and the wind
Apples and pears most loved by the bears
Hung fatly and sweet and grew everywhere
Within their green field sat their small wooden house
Complete with a bunny and one kindly mouse.
The chimney on top with the smoke curling out
Smelled yummy and hot like Mothers steamed trout
With the scent of fresh breads, of puddings and stouts
The air tickled noses and turned people’s heads
It filled the night air with the smell of roast bear
Boiled mutton, baked beef, cherries, pumpkins and Pear
In the coldwater Locke by the woods in the glen
They fished and they sunned and they swam, all of them
And when there was ice, they skated and sliced
Then fell on their rumps with a grin
When the wind it blew haggard and harsh
When it rushed so rough to the south
When it chilled the small house and the one kindly mouse
When all noses were red, inside and out
Then they snuggled quite tight, beside firelight
While father told stories that he knew
No care did they have for together they thrived
Never alone or affright
If love could make candy and kisses make fruits
Turn joy into chocolates and smiles into treats
Then never a family, was more like soft candy
And never were Six more sugary sweet
You see, he learned how to sing from the Mockingbird King
And the Storks, well they taught him of dancing
So he taught his four girls
And his wife with dark curls
To dance and to sing and to live as if spring
Would never depart from the world
He learned how to carve and build boxes
While schooling with red winter foxes
Learning his trade and how to be paid
Selling red wooded, Chinese music boxes
He carved with tree thorns and sharp little horns
Always his wife there beside him
Carved with small figures, of bunnies and guineas
With doves and with flowers and penguins
He made each one sing, with bells that could ring
With a dancer that sang through the evening
With care and great skill did he use
All that he’d learned and he knew
And all that he built, with a heart free from guilt
Was shiny and lovely and true
Only one at a time, did he glue and fit tight
Not starting another till the first was just right
Placing within each new box
All he’d learned from the fox
In the glen by hill, near the woods and the field
Beside the coldwater Locke
Created with smiles, with laughter and sighs
Then painted with bird feather brushes
With flowers for girls and tigers for boys
He painted them one then another
Yes, he made boxes that sang, to cure little girl’s pains
So music and song would surround them
All the magic he knew from the world when still new
He used on his red music boxes
All the dances he’d seen
The songs that he gleaned
He used to create each beautiful thing
His daughters, his wife and his boxes
When one each was done and he’d named every one
He sold them to those who would love them
He harvested the wood that he used to build boxes
From towering Cedars that grew with the oxen.
He cut what he pleased for they grew like the weeds
In a year all he needed was twenty
The trees grew as high, as high as the skies
As high as an eagle whenever he flies
With a small wooden cart, he would carry the wood
To his home in the field, to his shed in the woods
The trees grew so thick, so tall and so long
As brown as the dark eyes of his little girl Wong
He formed the small pieces of the finished wood tops
From the stalks that he gathered to replenish his stocks
He cut them himself from within the dark woods
Tall, thin bamboo, where nothing else grew
He cut and he wacked at the great tall bamboo
Working all the hot day, until he was through
The stalks grew so thickly, so tightly they did
Where Panda, Tiger and Elephant hid
Then he bound it and dried it, then whittled it down
To make tiny drawers and the things that go round
When young it grew green and could sing in the wind
Like whistles from leaves, it sang from within
Bamboo remembers and knows it’s young tune
It will sing in a box when dried and loved true
It never forgets the sound of its song
As pure as the smile of his little girl Yong
He sawed and he cut, he dried and he planed
He smoothed and he formed, then he glued and he stained
He sanded and painted, he polished and smoothed
He lacquered and finished, then smoothed once again
He made tiny pieces of bamboo and carved wood
Then sealed them with glues, as best as he could
Glues made from eggs whites and Robin’s eggshells
That he picked up himself, just right where they fell
He gathered them one and he gathered them all
Yet only those that were broken and those that did fall
The shells were of azure and indigo too
A tiny bit round and a little bit new
As deep as tall iris, they were and remained
Like the swift giggling brooks, for which they were named
They each were bright blue, like the clear sky at noon
As dark as the sea, as bright as his mood
As blue as the soft words he sang to his wife
For all that she gave him, his children and life
As blue as the sad years he’d spent without song
As blue as the heart of his little girl Fong
He gathered the stones from the rivers all round
Stones full of copper and zinc that he found
He crushed them and mixed them, then smelted them down
For the Brass to make gears and the teeth that made sounds
For a box without sound is sad little thing
As sad a lover, alone in the spring
For it’s gears that give life to a box that can sing
And it’s love that turns sound into songs in the spring
You see the heart of a music box is only as big as its gears
As strong as its joy, as sad as its tears
The gears that he molded were strong and quite sound
Shiny and sparkly, the best to be found
They gleamed like the sunshine and shone the dawn
Like the eyes of his last born, his little girl Hong
He then carved it a lovely, petite, tiny dancer
Of Whalebone or Walrus or maybe Deer antler
No one could say, for only he knew
By the end of the day when the carving was through
But carve her he did and then set her on top
To twirl and then spin, to dance until stopped
When all was just perfect and all was arranged
There sat a new box for his daughters to play
Smooth as new silk, red as the dawn, bright as the eyes
Of his little girls Wong, Yong, Fong and of course little Hong
On top spun the dancer, of pink and chiffon
She danced in a circle while the box sang it’s song
He wound it then set on table or pot
When dinner was through but the dishes were not
Then they’d all gather round and they’d watch and then smile
As the box played a tune to while away hours
For there in the stones, the metals and trees
There is life in the magic for the love of all these
A man and his wife with their four little girls
Cause it’s love that brings life, to boxes and worlds
But it’s one music box that I’m here now to say
Came to life in that season, that very same day
A gift for sweet Hong, with her own tune to play
A song about life, true love and the way
The way that a father can so love his girl
To build wooden boxes to brighten her world
There was magic and power in that green Chinese field
With love and with romance, really quite real
The woods held the Magic, in the bamboo and trees
With power in waters, rivers and streams
It came to be then, within little Hongs hands
That the music box sang, with the force of a band
The love that they shared, little Hong and her box
That her father had made, once taught by the fox
Sing, boy did it ever, whenever it could
Of a fathers great love, in their home in the woods
She loved and took it wherever she went
She always rewound it when it’s song was all spent
The love that she gave it, so innocent and true
Was all that was needed, for wishes to bloom
Well that love grew so strong, so true and so real
That before they all knew it, well that box…it could feel
It’s little brass wheels, they then turned into flesh
It’s heart filled with joy and it’s gears drew a breath
The six of them then, formed a family each day
A family of six, no seven they say
And each lovely night, when the sun went away
When foxes did prance and the rabbits did play
When robins and blue jays and owls up on high
Looked down from above, with glee and with sighs
The family of seven, with song in their hearts
Did sing and then dance, to the songs of the larks
They smiled and they laughed, they giggled and pranced
While Mother and Father passed winks of romance
For years they remained, so happy and free
While Hong and her sisters grew tall as the trees
Yet spring turns to autumn and rain turns to snow
It wasn’t that long, before all was to go
Too soon came the time that it all turned to gray
Their life in the grass, the fields all a sway
But the love of a father for child and sweet lass
Lives on forever, in wood and in brass
Like the love of a girl, for her red music box
Loves great as these, well they never stop
Before they knew why, their songs faded out
Things change so fast, of this there’s no doubt
It was summer that year, when the rains went away
Then Father’s great fear came true as the day
The city was growing, no longer a town
Black smoke filled the skies and smog burnt their eyes
Great sadness was near, no longer bound
They watched and they cried as the trees were cut down
The woods disappeared, all turned into houses
People and trains scared off the small mouse’s
The bamboo was sheared, the grasses all died
The animals left, the birds flew away
The brooks they all dried as the Governor lied
Selling the waters for pennies a day
The rocks they were mined, crushed and refined
To build fences and roads, to bar people’s way
The field filled with grass, soon covered in ash
Turned brown as the dust, cause the rain couldn’t last
Soon factories and stores and people in hordes
Buried the green hills with concrete and floors
Wong met a boy that she married quite fast
Leaving Father and Mother, minus one lass
Yong left for school, no longer a girl
But a woman with dreams and a life in the world
Fong went to work, in a town, by a church
In a country and city by a woods, full of birch
This left father and mother, Hong and her box
To live by themselves, they and one fox
Now it wasn’t too long, before there came along
Sickness and illness and many sad songs
Soon Father took ill and Mother a chill
Little Hong couldn’t fix and couldn’t make well
Before thaw turned to spring and the sun warmed the ground
Both mother and father and Hong were all gone
The box it was sold, to pay fathers debts
For doctors and nurses and all of the meds
Mother was with him, just holding his hand
When he faded off, to new better lands
Mother soon followed, like flowers and seeds
Dropping her petals, replaced by the weeds
For she couldn’t stay, without Father beside her
Without her dear husband to love and to guide her
Together they left, leaving Hong all alone
In a country named China, in a home not her own
On that very day, as little Hong sobbed
The gears of her box…well they just sort of stopped
Without little Hong and her bright summer smiles
Her heart just stopped beating, her gears had grown tired
The sad music box, now alone by the Locke
Grew lonely and rusty and wouldn’t unlock
Her heart had grown old, due to rust and her tears
For a future of nothing but lone empty years
Soon she was taken to a small little shop
And sold with the rest of fathers old stock
Then packed in a crate and shipped over seas
To help pay the cost of Hongs food and small cot
The trip it was long for rough was the ocean
On a ship with a sail, just as old and forgotten
When she arrived to new shores in a land far away
She sat alone on a shelf, until this very day
When came a young man in the shop to do trade
To seek a small gift, for his bride down the way
He looked and he thought and looked once again
Yet nothing he found could make his wife grin
Till he found in the back, in the dark, at the top
A duty old shelf with a rusty old box
She had sat on that shelf, refusing to sing
For so very long, through winters and springs
With never a peep, nor a word or a phrase
Not a lyric or song or tune did she raise
Yet when the man touched her, something happened you see
She felt once again the need to be free
There was something that day, in his touch or his way
That tickled her gears, made her heart pound away
Something of magic was here once again
She felt it and knew it, yet couldn’t begin
She had been far too long, without family or Hong
Now her gears were too rusty, too dusty for song
So try as she might, to move and to sing
All she could manage was one tiny…Ting
So the man placed her back, back on top of her shelf
Then turned back around, to find something else
Yet before he moved far, this small music box
Gathered her strength, forced open her lock
Her top it slid open, her key it did turn
Her gears cranked around, her heart it did burn
In just that one moment, she came back to life
And sang, take me, and love me, a gift for your wife
She sang and she sang as if all of her life
Was all about this, this moment, this strife
The young man then turned and smiled a wide grin
For now he knew what, his wife he would give
So he bought the small box and wrapped her all in
Pretty red paper, with bows at each end
And when she was opened, unwrapped for her song
Whom did she see, but her little girl Hong?
For the young man you see, had searched high and low
For a love that loved him, and with him would go
To make him a family and be his new wife
So in China he searched for the love of his life
And the one that he choose, who choose him alike
Was little ole Hong, now grown to full height
So all of them three, forever they stayed
In a house by a brook, with a field all a sway
Where the trees grew so thick, so tall and so long
As brown as the eyes of their little girls Yong, and of course little Hong
If love could make candy and kisses make fruits
Turn joy into chocolates and smiles into treats
Then never a family, was more like soft candy
And never were five more sugary sweet
(For Little Wen)
The End
© 2010, Tim Wilkinson & Wayne Wilks
Written by Tim Wilkinson
Freelance writer, photographer, Poet, <meta name=
