NAN HU PARK, CHANG CHUN

The drizzling
Chang Chun sky trills  

blue lightning
through the twilight. 

Retired people practice
Taiji, arms and legs lifting  

and lowering slowly-
about three hundred 

ex-soldiers, teachers, dancers,
street cleaners. One of them  

sits in a wheel chair
moving only his upper body.  

Some manage with canes.
Others move as though still  

young. It starts to rain
hard, but they're still  

moving, accelerating:
a lightning bolt  

hits and rims the clearing.
Their limbs flash like wings.