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Phillip Gu Jul 2020
All that the cicadas had was one day, the gap
between two monsoons. The El Niño
ruins all their waiting. Seventeen years spent
under the dark and damp soil, wriggling their
way out. The prime numbers should meant
fewer competitors, hence more to share
in the promised land. But now the branches are
drown in the wet moisture. Raindrops
falling nearby like meteors. They splash on the
leaves and release a sound that is ten times
greater than the weak chirp. A rival that
no cicada would ever expected, and the rival
that seems never to be tired. Except for one day,
that the rain has shortly stopped, and sunshine
leaked from the slit of clouds just like
any ordinary summer, but not this.
There was still a pack of clouds stacking
in the distant horizon. One knew something
is going to happen, but the cicadas did't. So
they shook off the water and started the choir.
Jun 2020 · 59
The Alternative Spring
Phillip Gu Jun 2020
You should receive the postcards by June
when I reached Prague.
The old town square looks different
after the tension of March.
We hold meetings to discuss
how to nestle down in the chamber of
the astronomical clock. From there you can
see the pinnacle of the Cathedral
occupied by the petrels; and the bricks
on the square, an unrecognizable grid seen
from above, run over by burning churns.
Four months of conference
bores everyone. Especially those who
don't belong to this land.
The gannets and cormorants. They want
to lead all the beaks and feather, and
have all the rooftops and chandeliers.
But that's strongly
opposed. They did't grow up on
the bank of Vltava, and slide through
the eyot at dusk, the sand of which comes
from Dresden. They also held up meetings there
and isolated us, in spring. All these large
coastal breeds, coming from the north
where democratic is achieved among all.
Only to have more meetings, and endless
motions. Quarrels with the flutter of wings
while preaching their advanced
methods of hatching. But that doesn't work
for us. We are pigeons with
a sense for the diretion. Our breed lived on this
land for centuries. We witnessed this city
built from cobble, and we shall live our way
until it burned to ashes. These intruder must
be evicted. At all cost.
So we will fight, my dear. We'd fight until
the very last bleed out. We'd fight until
they go back to north. We'd fight until
the summer falls.
Phillip Gu Jun 2020
The moment I put down the book I find
there's something in the corridor.
A cautious shadowy entity hides
itself inside the continuous dark.
To capture its shape is to
grab salt in the water, get disorder out of its hierarch
like those summer nights, when you search for stars
never stare at them, but instead look at
somewhere else, until your pretended ignorance
creates a ripple in the sky.
Someone must first lose their patience, and
then the stars shall gradually emerge
at the corner of sight:
The Taurus, the Gemini,
or the one in the dark who reluctantly
steps out and stretches her paws.
Jun 2020 · 52
Opportunity's mission
Phillip Gu Jun 2020
The rover sees no difference between
Mars and Earth. The same vast plain
with some pits at the center and ridges lie far.
Her internal clock always claim
that a sol is no different than a day
except forty more minutes of slack.
Therefore most of time she rests
on the edge of a crater. And soaked
in the dim sunlight just like
back in Mojave, at dusk. If weather permits a stretch she'll
notify those remote engineers and
never use up her cell. Until
the day when she looked upon
the glowing dome where she came from,
it stroke her that Mars is different than
Earth. It has two moons. One in clear sight
but the other concealed itself behind
the approaching sandstorm.
Soon she felt drowsy underneath
a sudden dune who promises
gloomy sleepiness, then tranquil dormancy.
Opportunity needs a distant dream
after all this place is not Earthly
and her cell is now empty.

— The End —