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I ask my mother to sing
She begins
And my grandmother joins her
Mother and daughter singing like young girls
If my father were alive. he would play his accordion
and sway like a bull.
If my father were alive. he would play his dulcimer
and we'd all sway like a bull
I've never been to Peking or the Summer Palace
or stood on the great stone boat to watch the rain
begin to fall on Quenming Lake
I've never seen the picnickers running away in the grass
but I love to hear it sung about
How the water lilies fill with rain
until they overturn spilling all the water into the water
and then they rock back and they fill with rain again
Now both women have begun to cry
But neither one stops her song
-- Li-Young Lee
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