China: A Day In The Life Part 7

This is the inverse poem of poem #5 "From Here to There". Unsurprisingly it's called "From There to Here" and it describes my lunchtime walk back to my apartment. Lunch is a fairly long affair in China. The school closes from 12:30 to 2:30 and the teachers and kids all go home. Many families prepare full meals which in the Chinese manner consist of half a dozen dishes. I on the other hand am, as wiill be seen tomorrow, somewhat less elaborate.

As you might surmise, the poem is written in a series of inverse Fib verses in which the number of syllables decreases with each line.

From There to Here

The end of the lesson music plays.
All the children rise,
pack their books
and leave
me.

I follow them into the street,
begin my stroll home:
a slow pace
through the
park.

I head back to my apartment.
The dancers missing;
disappeared;
gone from
here.

I buy bread from the corner stall:
though the woman there
does not speak,
she nods,
smiles.

In the alley through the buildings
I pass the egg man
and his eggs:
brown, white
blue.

I climb back up the rabbit hole,
unlock the door and
like Alice
wake and
yawn.