Peking, 1958

I am studying Chinese not from a living person

But from dead books.

One of them is an ancient book, first published in 1958

By Peking University faculty.

It regularly talks of comrades, of Russian songs,

Russian students learning Chinese

And borrowing Chinese and Russian novels from the tushuguan.

Dear faculty, dear authors, dear teachers and friends,

We wonder what happened to you during the Revolution

Or at any point during the course of relentless currents of time

What became of you, how you survived

Or did not.

I have lost the three audio-cassettes that accompanied your book

Which may have contained the remnants of your beautiful singsong sounds

Your intelligence and your fears.