ANOTHER DECADE, HUDSON RIVER
then we turn our backs to the symbols
sit into another river
a dark blue corner of a dark blue room
when hearing is blacker ten years the jetty has leaned whispering against water
in the little park ten years the tender green accordion of trees has played
children charging down the April to April steps
clouds charging down their reflection water now bright now dark
and squirrel's pulped organs open
a blood-red photo album reality stings even through glass
even a soaked hand couldn't touch the lined-up days
river a blank textbook hanging from the past window
questioning now only the single page that remains being vagrant is innate
weariness tethered to a water bird flying low
the spinning whirlpool exit for all the world's skyscrapers
flee flee to plastic flowers vanishing is innate
Hudson just like a name formed by the sound of the wind
lamplight's passing glance just like ghost fire hidden in human bodies
switched on just like a notch blown away at will
a rosy notch twilight recorded on the sky
whoever has understood it will live into a poem
unending past events
room in a room filled with water of a decade
corner in a corner painting the dark blue of distance
the way we sit forever turning our backs on the ocean
listening to the waves shatter rubble savagely smashing a decade
telephone lines broken cries for help blindly float through a decade
river the colour of forgetting can't forget
each day two hands full of crimson steel tumbling straight down
burning is innate handful of ash fixed in
tight-shut eyes moon like a scooped-out pip
singing contralto requiem for every river valley
every place that flows away appears each time after dying
banks paved underfoot have been thousands of times removed
a pale fishbone always has another end glowing with phosphorescent light
endurance to slap a lifetime's final
farewell pushing out tonight again
with the look of a room thrust into the universe
survey how much this sunken ship could further sink
our backs turned to zero drawn as the horizon
how much farther it migrates then crazy blue is blue enough to be black
in a lost accent Hudson pressed against
a bluestone wellhead buried at the gate of an ancient Chinese village
destruction touches its own diameter of one day
one drop gathers snow left for us
with the beauty of survivors and the cruelty of survivors
by Yang Lian