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Splendid, Suppressed
This year, the spring stormswill seize us in their fists.Everything under heaven grows,and heaven too is flourishinglike a lush pine-forest,propagating something called “eternally together.”heaven’s cleansing will be put off until autumn.The crops will fall on the ground and be squandered.I won’t gather up even some—heaven will be the witness. So enormous,as if all the seasons were gathering here.Autumn’s face, lit by our hometown’s lights, will sing—spring storms will come this year,and they will not let us off so easily.
Beijing1989.5.10. [End Page 149]
Luo Yihe (1961–1989) was an important poet and editor of the 1980s. He discovered and published Hai Zi, whose poetry became celebrated nationwide. He joined the hunger strike during the student movement in May 1989 and died that month. In his poem “Splendid, Suppressed,” the word hometown refers to Beijing.
