Deprecated: (rune) mysql_connect(): The mysql extension is deprecated and will be removed in the future: use mysqli or PDO instead in /afs/athena.mit.edu/activity/r/rune/web_scripts/lit_view.php on line 42
Epilogues: A Parallel Poem
Just as both God and Devil are man's incarnation...

I
From the front yard of a melodious morning
From the busy road of a sweet Saturday 
From the moist corner of a heavy march 
From the back lane of pale winter
We have come, here and now, all gathering
In big crowds gathering in big crowds
Gathering in ever-bigger crowds gathering
For the boat to cross the wide wild waters
Before the fairy ferry is fated to fall
Under our feet too heavy with earthy mud 

II 
You may well hate Charon
But you cannot help feeling envious:
That business of carrying the diseased
Across the River Styx is ever so prosperous
The only monopoly in the entire universe
That has a market share
Larger than the market itself

Daydreaming, on this side
Of the river, how you might wish
To be an entrepreneur like him
A success American dreamer

...so are Heaven and Hell both man's construction.

III 
Flying between sea and sky 
Between day and night 
Amid heavenly or oceanic blue
I lost all my references 
To any timed space
Or a localized time
Except the non-stop snorting 
Of a stranger neighbor

Then, beyond the snorts rising here
And more looming there 
I see tigers, lions, leopards 
And other kinds of hunger-throated predators
Darting out of every passenger's heart
Running amuck around us 
As if released from a huge cage
As if in a dreamland
Changming Yuan
Published in Issue 33