qarrtsiluni

by Nicholas YB Wong

For Liu Xiaobo

“Silence is still the story of the East.”
Bei Dao

The spring breeze that has seen him
through the tiny barred window
now carries his thoughts, his sorrow
along the river, eastward, nightward.

Through the tiny barred window,
he recites to the world forbidden words.
Along the river – Eastward – Nightward,
ashy faces flow, chanting a dirge.

He recites to the world forbidden words
by tapping his fingers on black bricks.
Ashy faces chanting a dirge
until they are renamed martyrs on escarpment.

By tapping his fingers on black bricks,
he bears the pain of seeing light.
Until martyrs are spoken of on escarpment,
he waits for a hole to break the sky.

He bears the pain of seeing light,
caused not by brightness, but opacity.
He waits for a hole in the sky,
and will call it an all-seeing eye.

They say the spring breeze has come, weightless.
It brings his forbidden words of might.
And they say it returns with the image of an empty
chair reserved for a silenced martyr.

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Nicholas YB Wong (website) is the author of Cities of Sameness (Desperanto, forthcoming) and the winner of several awards, including the Sentinel Quarterly Poetry Competition and nominations for the Best of the Net and Best of the Web anthologies in 2010. He is currently a poetry editor for THIS Literary Magazine and a poetry reader for Drunken Boat.