Seagulls from the Other Woods

by Hua Ai


In the woods,
my leaves have tapped on many people’s heads
during their yellowed seasons.
The fallen woods and the wind towards the west,
two glasses of a historic yesterday, cut through Sava River,
and they asking about how hungry I must have been to be aboard.

And the waves curled back again in their shivering feathers.
The seagull's wings continued, beckoned the tide that swirled my abode.
I was plundered in depravity and taken towards another tree.
And after that day, the northern wind was among petals of peaceful summer night
    that were never mine
             or yours! 

I swallowed my improvised question, again—
There was a piece of paper written about the abode of someone else,
and the beggar crumbled up.
Her hands had already been burnt by fuse of childhood. 

We now heard the whistle in the wind.
The steamboat and the slashes of fish’s
ribs were against the deceits
and split the mist wide awake.
I was shrouded in a peak of special calm,
which is the water that carries us all and races forward.

Now, I was sure. 
The earth would cross the line between the yellow string
and make us drink down
a full bowl of soup during twilight,
drenching a requiem of one's fall.

Dozens of baby seagulls carefully awoke under an aged shell,
watching their mothers waddling away alone.
Their forlorn daughters were at the face of those ruthless steamboats
in torrents, running over their body when the winter still frosted,
and told me:
“In March, swallows will cut me into the shapes of their new homes.
In September, love birds will harvest skulls of mine and knit me in some new reeds.
When we all are alone under the same belt of river,
our bones will finally turn into blue,
gradually connecting the soils of countless cities
beneath a stringless bank.”


* * * * *

Hua Ai hold a bachelor degree in English Literature from King’s College London. She is a published feminist fiction writer in Mandarin. Her English poetry has appeared once on The87 Press, Oxfam London and many times on KCL Literary Magazine. Her poems constantly engaging with the spiritual animals in her mind palace, rediscovery of cultural feminism, sisterhood and the nature. She is working as an educator and a translator in London.