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Hot. Having burned me but also

Warmed me. I regard it from a distance.

The flowers choking it, bleeding onto it,

Red legacy binding our generations.

From below, we thousands cast upon it a

beatific, benighted, complacent, complicit,

decorous, disconsolate, distracted, expectant,

execrative, filthy, grievous, guileless,

hallowed, hotheaded, hungry, incredulous,

indifferent, inscrutable, insubordinate, joyful,

loath, mild, peace-loving, profane, proud,

rageful, rancorous, rapt, skeptical, terrified,

tranquil, unperturbed, unrepentant,

warring eye.

Red Wall

Tracy K. Smith & Changtai Bi, translation from
the Chinese written by Yi Lei

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