They kept telling us
On these fabulous posters
That this is the beauty of our society,
And that makes us all stronger.
The sky scrapers, high, always higher,
Synonym of expeditious development;
The material proof that things were good,
Posters made of concrete.
And yet, behind those sky scrapers,
The hints of something, there, restless.
I told my children,
But they couldn’t understand.
I did not see it coming either,
Although it was right there,
Under my nose,
Too real to be true.
But it became true enough,
And sooner that anyone imagined.
It’s like if anger itself had come,
And like a tsunami when it comes,
It has swept everything,
Leaving nothing but hate.
They tore each other’s fragile flesh
Until the streets were flooded with blood,
And overnight the piles of corpses
Made curious signposts;
The following day they came, the survivors:
Grim, angry, outraged, ripped,
Without their kins,
the dead ones.
And pain would not stop them,
But only maddened them further,
They sought a rallying cry,
Nationalism gave it to them.
The banner, red as blood, hoisted,
above the destruction, broken glass,
And Urumqi was bleeding,
And Harmony was all but a dream.
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