Belgrade’s Pain

by Liang Ping
     trs. by Chen Xiaoyuan

Yugoslavia, gone,
Old Chinese Embassy site, pulled down.
At the corner of the construction site, a marble slab
is indulged in black humor
An epitaph with the names of two young men
stands more desolately than lives.
Rain falling from the sky
Withered wildflowers covered with tears
The bleak yellow, blatantly glaring.
Shelterless marble slab is silent
No one stopped by.  No one cast another look.
Belgrade with a dull expression
has a memory shorter than fish’s
I knelt down, listened to the bombings from then
The accuracy of targeting the basement from across the ocean.
I came all the way from my motherland
And caught no sight of the Rhine blue
I can only remove, gingerly
the mud and leaves on the epitaph
afraid that my sea of sorrow
would approach the wound.

August 3, 2018