O Motherland, My Dear Motherland

Vivian Yuxin Wen

I am the wan, battered waterwheel by your riverbank,
weaving a haggard song for hundreds of years;
I am the smoke-smeared miner’s lamp on your forehead, 
shining into the tunnel of your history, 
searching and groping.
I am the husk of rice, shriveled; the roadbed, out of repair;
I am the barge mired in the silted strand,
towed, a rope 
carving into your arms and shoulders;
— O Motherland!

I am poverty, 
I am sorrow.
I am your generations of generations
        in aching hope,
I am the flowers in the wide sleeves of Feitian
that, for thousands of years,
have not landed;
— O Motherland!

I am your youngest wish, 
shaking off the cobwebs of mythos;
I am the embryo of an ancient lotus, 
germinating under your quilt of snow;
I am the tears pooling in the crease of your smile;
I am your starting line, just painted;
the red light of dawn, 
        effusing, racing, 
outpouring;
— O Motherland!

I am one fraction of your billions, 
I am the sum of your nine-million-six-hundred-thousand square;
You with your breasts, inscribed 
with wounds, have nurtured me, 
who waits 
in bewilderment, in musing, in rapture;
so from my body of skin and pulse
please, take
your glory, your flourishing, your liberation;
— O Motherland,
My dear Motherland!