Robert Frost in China

Blurred in red and yellow

Smeared with dancing green streaks

It falls nearly into the sea

Right up against the harbor wall it stretches

Reaching out against the purple waters

Toward the Pearl tower and river barges

The street, it teems with humanity

Nations sweep together, body to body

Languages clash and mingle like friends and enemies

While old Europe stands in architectural silence

And with quiet courage, the Canadian flag salutes from the Peace Hotel

The crush of life roils like breakers through the wide avenue

Hopping, and pushing, and scraping by

With shopping bags

And Korean beef on sticks

With fake Coach purses

And counterfeit Ray Bans

The men spit

And smoke

Its acridity holds court in the street

Amidst the roar of world

On this busiest thoroughfare

There off of it, lies an alley

Dark and shadowed

Broken slats of stone, upended and uneven

It is quieter, colder, more wondering

And from its glooms she appears

Small, short, and in many ways like a child

With plastic slipper flops, worn down and filthy

She eagerly takes us by the hand and leads us

Like children, deeper into the humid recesses of the backstreet

The deep subtlety of rotten fruit and sewage saunters with us

Like pennants, laundry hangs bannered across the width of the alley

Around a corner,

In plastic chairs, families and neighbors sit

Talking and spitting and smoking

They are waiting for us

Watching for us

Their voices rise in excitement

They lead us into their shop

Small, but overflowing

With cheap gold buddhas

XL t-shirts that shrink three sizes

Scarves, swords, chopsticks, and jade bracelets

Broken Mandarin jags out of our mouths

As we haggle and barter

We are tough customers, they are tough sellers

But the silence and solitude of the empty store pulls us in to linger

To drink in the mystery of this lonely shop, passed by

By millions who tread the world’s busiest road a few yards away.

Finally we depart, with more cheap souvenirs and less Yuan.

Our Ziajian’s echo from the alleyway as we wave goodbye to the shop owners

They turn out the light in the shop

Lock the sliding door

And return to their plastic chairs

Awaiting the next straggle of wanderlusting tourists

The darkness slips away into red and yellow lanterns and neon lights, and Starbucks and Apple and Forever 21 and Nike, as we wend our way back to rejoin the throng of nations

Crushed against the flow, walking toward the East China Sea as it
Rises up in undulating waves to hug the end of the Road.