John Zheng

Then and Now

Swallows once skating in the rink of the morning sky are chirping only in the warm wind of dreams. Spreading in the sky is the gray smog, heavy and thick, shrouding the city into a dying place. When night falls, people in the street look like walking apparitions, and the moon a pale skull.

sudden gale
dust swept up
across the fields
the sun a scarecrow
blown away

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About the Author

John Zheng has authored Enforced Rustication in the Chinese Cultural Revolution and published haibun and tanka prose in cho, Haibun Today, Southern Quarterly, and Spillway. His latest book is A Way of Looking, a collection of haibun and tanka prose.

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