I clap my hands and urge myself to dance, stretching like a tongue over a yawn while my fingers snap like fire glinting off glass. All winter I’ve been shuttered away like withered roots in the cellar. Now here comes the sun’s warmth, prickling my scalp, and I unwrap my scarf from my neck for the first time in months. My voice still carries the sadness of the long procession of cement-gray days, but my fingers pluck the new green skin of the world like a child worrying her mother’s arm. Will you take me away? I ask the winds off the estuary, which smell of mud and salt. Anywhere, they answer, and I clap my hands, and urge myself to dance.
Chinese and English on pp. 50-51, here.
如 (thus) 是 