The Li river

Beautiful Li's husband was sent away to help build the Great Wall. She was hearbroken. Everyday she would climb to the top of a hill with her child in arms to await his return. Little did she know he had been killed serving the Emporer in the construction of his barricade. The Gods, seeing this, took pity on the poor woman standing atop the hills of Guilin and turned her to stone. Their magic could not shut off her tears, and from them sprung the great green river.


looking like some kind of Grand Central Primeval
the Li River beautiful girl stretches a sickly green
choked with tourism smog
the poor lady cries for a husband
off to build newer and better things
leaving poor celestial child
alone
and unaccounted for
calling to the people to fill her swollen banks
maybe if I modernize I can have the one I love back
but alas
he's dead and buried
under stone and endless stretch of wall more modern
than he was able to cope with and all the poor child can do is
weep
she'd be beautiful if she'd smile
but who can part such red ripe lips when choking
on entrepanureal exhaust
exhausting her lungs with a wail unheard
crystal green eyes not weeping but wet constantly
fearing an end that will come she'll be tattered and worn
like her mud-brown cousin*
disappointed
not in her beauty but the lack thereof
dirtied by lovers filling the time
before that long lost eternal
unsoiled clean can return
she opened up for him but
lost
anyway
impure and unstained
women do the strangest things
for love

*the Yangtze river