The Square

The Construction Site Has Long Drained Half My Life Away

Fate may be unjust,
but time is absolutely fair.
Over thirty years of toiling on construction sites —
the petty foreman gradually transformed
into a proper city dweller,
while my comrades and I
have gone from young lads to a bunch of "new old men,"
leaning on canes and pills just to walk through this world.

Though some buildings stand unfinished,
though I still can't afford a home,
I can still imagine
the joy of families moving into new houses.
Among the myriad city lights, there also shines
the radiance of me and many of my brothers.

Row upon row of high-rises,
street after street.
Between village and city, over thirty-some years —
a body from which half its life has been drained,
a migratory bird using its wings to prove
the sky, too, once bore the mark of its passage.

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About the Poet: Li Xuefeng, pen names Northwest Wind and Northwest Potato, is a member of the Dingxi Writers Association, Lintao Literature Research Institute, an editor and council member of the Diaochan Poetry Society, and a member of the Lintao Poetry Association. His works have appeared in publications such as Chinese Micro-Poetry, Soul of Chinese Poetry, Shenzhou Literature, Speed Reading, Hundred Flowers Garden of Literature, Writer's New Vision, Northwest Wind, Daduke River, Poets of the Great Northwest, The Loess Land, Dingxi Daily, Modern Poetics, as well as various online poetry platforms.

《工地，早已将我一半的生命抽走》