The Road To the Ballot Box -- In Memory of the Tiananmen Incident 1989
The Road to the Ballot Box – In Memory of the 1989 June Fourth Movement in Tiananmen
Square, Beijing
Up high, the portrait of Chairman Mao looms
Over the ballot box, wrapped in chains of doom
Beautiful as a mirage, a rainbow
And no more reachable.
The road ahead is winding, at times backwards bending,
And above all, never-ending,
And the one before – all too painful.
The year of bloodshed;
The year when students begged
By strike, by mass hunger,
For freedom and democracy
But heard instead the bullet’s thunder;
The eternal moment when one held his head high
And a train of tanks he defied;
When students refused to leave the Square, their friends,
And sat unflinching through the bloody crimson end.
The muted cry of these forgotten heroes
On that fateful night twenty years ago
Still rings loud and true in our hearts
In a land where the engine of freedom wouldn’t start.
Twenty years on they walk
Defiant, grim-faced,
Battered yet unfazed.
Clothes torn in rags
Here and there, a splatter of red
Blisters on their feet
Eyes that bear a burning piercing heat.
Our hearts may be broken
And our spirits shaken
But still, the truth is out there –
Still being spoken.
Once more I lift my eyes
To the mirage in the sky
Will we ever get there?
Walk on – do you dare?
Copyright © Christy Chiang | Year Posted 2009
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