Towards the Yangtze
1
4AM Shanghai
Me, insomniatic as usual
Watching light rise
Through pollution skies
To illuminate building designed
By a committee of Dr. Seuss, Salvador Dali and MC Escher
The ship pulls out through endless gauntlet
of all the ships in the world
Each their own world
Tiny houses on giant barges, flags, cigarette and a wave
2
Yangtze River wide
As a sound
Cozy as an African watering hole
Herds of barges graze
Like wildebeests ready to fall into stampede
When hyena party boats of wedding revellers
disappear into dark,
Moored behind elephant cruisers
The bulls wait beyond the marsupial floating dry docks
Holding wounded deer craft
Under gaze of manicured obedient flocks
Of bobbing cranes
Feeding vibes into yawning hippos accustomed to melons
Catamaran racers lean into wind, puny sailors lean to balance for the watches and cameras
As peacocks might
Beneath windmills grindingly faraway wheat
3
The wagon trail of floaters
Parade through river intersections
Obeying crackled jargon appointing times-subject to change
From typhoons, tainted waters, tides and an abundance of caution
And negotiation
Then the dispatch arrives
And like preschoolers, holding a string
The horizon redefines with tankers
Containers, cruisers, scoopers, prospectors, fighters, seekers, and free radicals
Bearing industrial names
Referred by diligent tugs
Pilots breakwater boundaries
And the wake and buoys ahead
Soon they will diverge to transient paths
Using similar charts
And common codes