The Drummer (鼓手)
Xiao Qiang (萧强)
Singing all night, shouting slogans all night,
Everyone’s exhausted.
Just as dawn approaches
The lights in the square go out.
We understand, the troops are approaching;
The end has come.
In the deathly stillness, someone
Grabs a drum and climbs the cenotaph.
Two hundred thousand people sit in silence;
In the darkness no sound but the drum’s increasingly urgent tattoo.
本诗原载“北京诗笺”.
