Everybody in China is moving now,
clapping hands for fair visions
and dreams half-forgotten.

It is the national holiday
when the sun shines brighter.
The old, familiar songs
a voice, a chime.

Now everybody
carries something.
Names, stories, memories
from the mountains.
And the dust from
the cities of concrete.

On days like these
there is no sadness,
no rancor.

Just a desire to taste
the salted tea.
And the wind breath
of the naked river beds
at dawn.

The daughters of the nomads
cry once again on padded knees.
And call upon the distant
twilight ghosts, shy and sullen
to lift the veil once more.

In the end, they make it.
And the last race is over,
for another year.