Jonathan Galassi
Chinese Dream
Then the Chairman
took me by the hand:
‘Everyone
is rehabilitable.’
He made a gesture.
‘Give him four seasons
a man will learn
he loves this land.
Let him discover it
hold it up to the light
watch it move.
The earth is a mirror
our fathers made
working it
as we do now.’
The fields surrounded us
the four horizons.
Beyond them hills.
Farmers’ bicycles
stacked at hedges
farmers bending.
He turned to me:
‘Do you remember Lin?
His sisters tend a plot here.
They grow beets
and never talk
or think of him.
They provide
and continue.
They will go
down in time
and re-occur.
We tend to ourselves
and we survive.’
He showed me fields
that once were desert.
A plane passed
over new chimneys
breaking the silence.
My thoughts were homeward.
We walked to the eastern hills
through a fine rain.
Four winds blew
over the red dykes
as we bent towards Wushan.
But I said nothing
pity was
so deeply settled in me.
Page(s) 13-14
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The