Climbing China’s Great Wall by Afaa M. Weaver

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend May 1, 2015   Climbing China’s Great Wall   Afaa M. Weaver

This wall is a great stairway, walls are things that shoot up, keep out, line the places where we mark the halls   that carry our names. The busts of this one and that one, this history is in the hard labor of hearts, thrusts   of piston and valve. I sit down at the first house, dizzy at the view over the wall, the tourist town   below us, in buildings made old by the deliberate hand of business, not the rain, the sun, the untold   billions of raindrops and tear drops of soldiers wishing for the lovers they left behind, untended crops,   mothers weaving braids of grief in their hair. A little old woman bounces past me, leaping the brief   weld of stone to stone, the stairs the legend and skeleton of the wall, where white cranes dance in pairs.            Copyright © 2015 by Afaa M. Weaver. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “In the early summer of 2002, I made my first trip to Mainland China after a semester of teaching in Taiwan as a Fulbright Scholar. I walked for a while, and then I sat and tried to imagine the history.” —Afaa M. Weaver   Afaa M. Weaver is the author of City of Eternal Spring (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014). He teaches at Simmons College and Drew University and lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.   Photo credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths Most Recent Book by Weaver   City of Eternal Spring (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014) "The Uncanny Valley" by Amanda Nadelberg "P.O.P video: Afaa M. Weaver" "Lake Havasu" by Dorianne Laux Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038