Leaving Winter
We’ve awakened too early / To dust and discourse, unripe memories
This poem was written last week, but it snowed today, on the ides of March.
Leaving Winter
It is time to go, our hints are nearly explicit
But Winter’s got a head made of elm, it won’t move
Blue skies should be in bloom, and pink faces, pink peaches
Ancients have looked at these same branches along the canal
And thought of lush harvest, fragrance intoxicant
Or idled in bed dreaming of moist petals, good rain
We’ve awakened too early
To dust and discourse, unripe memories
I peer at a sun through gauze, the sky bandaged
Flowers are forced to work, ready or not
I’m going, I’m going, Winter says, not going
We leave instead, light up a smoke on the terrace
Lived in Beijing for a decade. This brings it home
"the sky bandaged" - I lived in Chongqing for two years, not beijing, but a truer way to describe the skies above Chinese megalopoli, I have never come across. Good work brother.