Friday, May 27, 2005

In my frenzy reorganizing and neatening up of my room in Project packup, I found scraps of paper with valued thoughts and emotions. Here's one of them that brought tears to my eyes as I was writing. 眼前所看到的,真是心酸的一幕。

The green bin
A wrinkled old woman,
hunched over with age,
wizened, small, frail, and greyed.
Plunged her hand
without hesitation
into
the green bin.

Such bins,
never explored the same way
by the young and materialistic,
who only dip their hands
into
pockets brimming with riches from doting parents
and the latest technological devices
that is never deemed existentially necessary to the old woman.

The green bin,
condemned by over-protective and pampering parents,
found its place as
a unhygenic mass littered with flies and cigarette butts
and as a means of survival
full of crushed cans that can be exchanged for some miserly sustenance.

The old woman,
accustomed to the art of living through the bin,
lay the cans on the stoney floor.
With a determined stamp,
she crushed the embittered hoplessness
and pushed forth with mere determination to get by.
Her back is bent,
but she steadily picks up the crushed can
and packs it into her bag,
unashamed.

As the young watched in cold apathy and self-centred disgust
at such lowly and non-impressive behaviour,
their elevated status gained from ignorance and apathy
pours forth in cold stares
that rains harder than the drizzle
and the chilly, wet sky.

I stood aside the young,
helplessly,
heart aching for the old woman,
thinking about
seeing the green bin
through her eyes.






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