Unsung

Xi’an, 1981 For Yu Xi Four decades since I lived in the Far East where yellow dust blew in each night from off the Gobi and my students wrapped themselves in cotton rags and carried tiny stools to class and sat like circus elephants practising their tricks memorising English the way some nations made the decision to re-arm beyond the city walls on gentle slopes the modest cherry trees began to swell like baking loaves and after every day of rain in spring she said the temperature rises one degree a kind deceit I chose to believe for ever.