Spring in Siberia

A nondescript whisper of clothing. Roiling within its seams a thousand anguished sighs of a thousand exploited Chinese workers. Confined in asphyxiating shops. The accoutrement sopped and heavy with brow sweat. Now braising under an unforgiving sun.

I can almost hear the distant tinkering of tools toiling on the vast expanse of train tracks. Lubricated with the tears and blood of countless immigrants. Spearheading progress and industrialization across the Midwestern plains.

This be a monument to Yangs of yester-century. Gone and departed from this earth. Unremembered.

We’re on a sandy shore. But there are no beach umbrellas and rum cannonballs at this destination.

No longer a spring in its step. This spring shivers with rust. Twang and boing no longer in its vocabulary. It stoops supine all day now. Rigid and fossil-like amongst the sands of time.

To bend is to be adaptive and survive. To be unmoving is to be stale and exiled obsolete.

Creak. And thirst. For memories of days of purpose.