Old Drum Tower Street

Abstract

Old Drum Tower Street Yin Longlong (bio) Translated by Ming Di and Frank Stewart Unpredictable Beijing rainhides its messages in ideologies.You don’t dare go out.When the rain lets up, rivuletscourse through your mind cutting you preciselyand dispassionately in two. The darkness unsettles youas if the June rain’sappeal to freedomis concealing something more.Defenseless, you pace the roomhoping for the arrival of friends. You open the door, the heavy rainsounds like men wrestling.You hear the street shouting in your ears.You stop at a corner of the skybearing fresh flowers.You turn a song into a long story,at the foot of each page is newsof the oncoming flood of summer. You see your house is like a boatthat’s moored fast in the storm.In the distance other houses and boats pitchto and fro as they approach from the northconveying men and women. Some of them are bearing the truth,and so their prows etch a river into the seathat will annually flood its banks,and bring disasters.All the beautiful seasons end at this pointlike stones standing quietly in a line. 1989 [End Page 154] Yin Longlong Yin Longlong was born in Beijing in 1962. He has published four books of poetry and was a member of the Yuanmingyuan poetry circle in Beijing. Cerebral palsy made him unable to walk, but because he writes about public issues, he lost his monthly welfare stipend. Copyright © 2019 University of Hawai‘i Press