Exam Time
‘In a hundred years I will return!’
(The Story of Ah Q)
Before my pen could glean
My ageing brain, someone called out
In a supervisory voice:
‘Time ends now.
Hand in all accounts.
Regulations insist
Anything of value must be left
At that black, curtained exist.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said,
Knowing he’d failed.
‘I never guessed it was so late.
Another life overslept!
This world of dew!
And yet, and yet…
Such a smell of smoke!
Natural enough in winter, I suppose,
With so much rubbish to burn.
Let me rake through these fallen leaves,
That’s the least I can do for you.
There! I though I’d find something!
Black hairbands, insects in amber, a tango,
Love-poems, a lute, a sprig of jasmine,
Fading traces of Jolie
Madame.
I’m afraid they’re all I’ve got just now.
Please meet me again in fifty years,
On that September day, at dawn.
I promise to be there on time.;
Intent on enlightenment,
You quoted Zhuang-zi to me:
‘Stranded fishes moisten each other with slime…’
Only love will bring you back again,
Knowing I could not live without you.
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