Breaching The Wall

The wind rose suddenly
	Out of the clear blue sky
Somewhere in Siberia it whispered
	Then spread out over the Taiga
Like the Golden Hord it roared across the Steppe
	Scarcely stopping on the grassland
Before it paused to stir up trouble 
	On the marchlands of the Gobi
Sucking up sand and silt and dust
Only to spit it violently
Across the ancient wall
That marks Cathay’s frontier.
Whence stretched out far and wide
It finally dumps its vengeance here.

A grey cowl smothers the metropole
Smudging out the sun
A cover-up in poor disguise
Drives dirt into my eyes
And throat and nose and hair..
Plastic bags in free flight like balloons
Hover in the air.
Trees shudder, quivering in fright
Then crack
	Delivering sharp thunderclaps,
Bicycles, once parked neatly
	By the rack
Blow over
	Black insect carapaces laid out row by row
A deck of cards as the wind still howls
	And darkness grows.
In the morning, across my path
A carpet of green leaves
	Throws a weird haphazard welcome
But bears silent witness to the aftermath.
Today, the air hangs cold.
The seeping chill
Holds an old familiar sulphur smell. 
I sense the tell-tale winter whiff of coal.
Beijing October 20 2009

© Jeremy Paltiel