从老的发给朋友的电子邮件中翻出来的。1997/4/8写的。
Deprivation
It is spring time and yet I see no green
The snow of last year stubbornly stays on
Wetting ground with dirty streams that in a storm
Turns into ice, just like the running nose of a kid
Who plays outside in deep winter
It is flower time in Luoyang, the peonies
Mingle with rural dust brought by peasants
Who swarm into parks, streets, buses and markets
Who find some time free from tending their fields
To enjoy the yearly peony fair with city people
I remember the first year there, we went to the King's Town Park
And took a picture under a pine, the whole class, 23 cadets I guess
Not knowing later, some will be in north America
Burying their memories into the strife and struggle for life
Carving out a new niche in this capitalist world
In New York, in Toronto, in California. in Harvard, in maritime Canada
Linked by e-mail and the same native land where our ancestors
Ploughed and fought
We ploughed too, though not with cattle, and planted "Sungua" 笋瓜
That we sold to the cadets canteen at 3 cents a jin(500g)
We watered our common filed, from a centrally managed electric well
And we brought manure to the fields, pulling the two-wheeled cart
Zhou Jianya was our platoon leader, a nice soldier, a good man
A rare piece of antiquity if in today's China, at least not corrupted
I miss him a lot and the political commissar, the tall, upright guy
We heard rarely backdoor then, though someone higher in rank
Did try to give a female cadet better job, if she should marry his son
And got exposed by her classmates, with a big-character poster
Such posters are banned now by the law, THE LAW
Because they are too democratic in a country where
Public speech is beautifully regulated, even a lost-and-found
Note, With some cartoonist tone of complain, can be termed as
Small-character poster. I miss big-character-posters, man
It seems however, most Chinese who were revolutionary
Are acquiescent abroad, Never care about what's going on around
Students, some, are critical, but only of a far-away opponent,
Advocating from a safe distance, something impressive
That can bring history to their names which they make sure
To appear before others in conference news
I am not a Chinese. I am anonymous and shapeless. I do not exist
当时的说明：
When I wrote the poem, I started like I am writing a poem and then my
thoughts drifted. All that goes on is triggered by the last line of
the previous stanza. I knew structurally speaking it is not poem at
all. I recalled old days in the army and sent the poem to a former
classmate in California.
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