Alamgir Hashmi: ‘The Skies over Wuhan Twitter On So’

The Skies over Wuhan Twitter On So

The skies over Wuhan twitter on so,
sandpipers circle up here, settle again ashore.
Herons fly back to the bounteous

pools and eddies of this full river;
water’s still-cold edge tells the fish position.
They touch down ever so lightly

poised to snatch a meal,
and dig in with their sharp bills. All happens
in plain surface-light that rotates time,

afloat where the ships are offloading sleepy crews,
tins of food, medicines, future wares.
Across the first bridge,

local spring figures the short and sweet
sense of things after her dead have been buried.
Cherry blossoms by the roadways are a changing hue:

from white to a light pink to sun-drenched white,
as the air fills with bold voices of school children going by—
with blue words, green petals, songs of tomorrow.

One wrinkled forehead, Confucius,
so long a stone at the campus, is thinking hard—
of course the trees are forthright in April.

Alamgir Hashmi