mstargazer

China Rain April 13, 2010 In China, the rains fall Down the darkened alleys Concrete grottoes and hovels The drops stain the cement Slowly gather in streams to run Choked, brown arteries to the streets Swell sickly in the gutters and vanish In the dusky, twilit avenues Vendors gather, those beetling droves Tanned, gibbous faces, downward turned Steam motes in the chill air Clouds swirl, rank and sour, hang above A boreal, blighted atmosphere Spring grips the ancient land As so often she has done But she slips, falls Falls into the sooty asphalt Into the cracking pavement Into the yawning black gutters Falls, without ma