Rain arrives as ordered on the first day
of mourning, gray sufficient
for thirty thousand, silent, and counting.

Counting. They say birds vanished,
left the sky without song
before the earth broke
on the crest of a slow wave
rolling plains to mountains. The whole
world shuddered at the immensity of silence.

Far from the center, birdsong and voices
on cellphones contain what is left
of silence, weave it into webs

to calm the earth shell of a rolling ocean
we mistook for solid ground.

Shenzhen, 19 May 2008

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