Red East
Red East (audio mp4) 1.4mb Quicktime 6 required
By Sai Li
This is my father performing tai-chi, hair hit
By silver circles through canopies of moon-lit
Pine trees, swift and sharp, like impromptu ant
Migrations. The hands move with wind, slant
In East and West, mystical planes intersecting.
He was a painter, brave strokes attracting
Black chicks with seven well-placed dots
Of his sable brush, as imperfect circle blots
Onto soft paper, taking shape, and becoming
Alive. Until the Red Guards broke in drumming.
A counter-revolutionary, they sent him to Dalian
With an old abacus, to count the kilos of oat bran.
At dawn, they made him slap his hands in the air,
Shake the trees to rouse the sparrows, scare
The vermin eating all the rice in the granaries.
He watched intently as they flew from trees to trees,
Awakened from sleep by rattles of willow branches.
He laughed as their tired bodies fell, appendages
Flapping in momentary unison before the crash
In impossible angles, amazed at how clean the flesh
On the backs of their wings were. Soon, locusts invaded
The fields and devoured the green in sight, this negated
The need for granaries.
So they told him to read the Red Book.
Wave the Red Book.
But he didn't drop dead
Like the hungry teacher who gorged on too many dried
Yams and bowls of wintermelon soup. But he cried.
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