What does China remember of Japan?
On Lugou Bridge you ask.
What does Japan remember of China?
On Lugou Bridge you want to know.
This is where it all started.
They say don’t count the stone lions
At the pier—
You will become one of them.
Stop counting
Stop!
Your eyeballs are turning stony, inward.
I bared my teeth in the mirror
When I got back to the hotel.
They still chatter.
Prolonged exposure to the Northerlies
On the bridge prises one’s palate.
But I did not roar.
A clever man in the last century
Wrote a fairly readable book
From Lugou Bridge to Pearl Harbor
(1937 to 1941). He reckons
A World War may begin many times
Before it begins.
We never tire.
You are not far off
One of the world’s true crime spots.
Are there secrets best kept in the War Museum
At Lugou?
Born after the War
I might turn in my parents,
In memory
Of their survival
In China’s war years.
“For your generation
The last world war
Was fought.” Yes, this will go on being said
Till the next generation
Born before the War
Has no one to say it to.
The late Qing Emperor left 4 words
On a stone pier:
“Dawn Moon
Over Lugou”