Stefanie Bennett- A Poem

WEN & THE RED CANDLE ...Wen I-to, Executed in 1946    

 

Putting on my flag-ship colours,

My work boots, my worn gloves,

I go out to greet you, dark visitor.

 

You went by the way of the Western-bank.

You will rise, in that same place – this time

Carrying the whole of China with you.

 

Brother poet, the chronicles have been

Reshuffled: thankfully

Your works are no longer set alight.

 

No! I do not wish to cause discomfort, but

The news I bring is... desolate.

Millions now join you in exile.

 

Confidentially, there are no safe crossings;

And reason drifts with the river-wind.

We must turn again from the T’ ie-an-men.

 

All is circumspect, my dark visitor.

The garrisons of greed are treacherous and

Conduct slavery quite openly. The globe –,

 

The globe of precious change has shrunk

Ten thousand times since

You blessed it with your tears.

 

As you prophesised, the ‘dead water’ has risen.

Peking’s paper-ghosts are the same

As their Western counterparts.

 

You said... ‘build a bridge! ...cross over’ !

Instead, they built a star-ship to heaven

                    - A red sun so bright

None can see the way back...

 

I go out to greet you, dark visitor –,

Your old war-cry at my throat. Our white flag

Is no surrender,

                    Just a soiled heart

Tattered by grief.

 

 

{Previously published by Flinders University’s ‘Literary Responses to Asia’}

 

 

Stefanie Bennett has published several books of poetry, a novel, and a libretto. Her poems

have also been published by VerseWrights, Galway Review, Jelly Fish Whispers, Communion,

Shot Glass Journal, Aleola Journal, Bijou Poetry Review, IS&T, The New Verse News and

others. Of mixed ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett-Shawnee], she was born in Queensland,

Australia, in 1945.