The Rivers—with a Nod to Langston Hughes

You come from the land of the Yellow River, silt-filled tyrant of the plains. Our rivers seem tame to you, a backdrop in a place where all is strange. Your boy became a bridge between two worlds. Languages came to him easily— the languages of music, English, hope. Words have lost their power while he lies here. You gather, the family dressed in red; a thousand paper cranes surround the bed. Or did you say the Yangtze? We are so often ignorant in the face of geography, and disease. Waiting by this bed with you, my soul deepens like your rivers.