Ai Wei Wei / Breathing Through Silk
by Linda Rogers
Trust the dissident artist;
he knows heads crack as
easily as sunflower seeds
and schools built on sand,
where fragrant Sichuan spices almost
cover the stench of corruption and death.
He spreads out one hundred million
porcelain seeds, each one perfectly
painted. Will that be enough to feed
the souls released in the Great Leap
Forward and Chengdu Earthquake?
There are one hundred million
reasons to walk in his shoes,
footsteps of ghosts who went
before him, as carefully as ants
avoiding diatomaceous earth
and resolute heroes swimming in circles.
The mornings Ai Wei Wei,
arrested for truth, sipped thin
soup in prison, we broke bread
on the rocks where circling gulls
opened their beaks to drop and
smash their invertebrate food—
where every story’s a sacrament,
one thing becoming another.
Never Sorry, Ai Wei Wei,
breathing through silk, does
not apologize for the toxic
dust that rises from his hand
made breakfast of martyrs,
seeds fired in crematoria.
He knows the breath exhaled from
graveyards and mouths full of
broken teeth is the wind of change.
Linda Rogers, poet, songwriter, novelist and journalist, past Victoria Poet Laureate and Canada’s People’s Poet, is an advocate for human rights, particularly those of children. Rogers’ most recent award is The Gwendolyn MacEwen Prize from Exile Editions, 2013. Her most recent poetry title is Homing from Ekstasis Editions. A mother and grandmother, she is married to blues mandolinist Rick van Krugel.
Photo Credit: Darshan Photography