Far Country
Hualien, Taiwan, Christmas Day 2019
The white sheets alone,
ribbed by azul wainscoting
and concrete walls, bleed
a hint of frost and all of that.
The room’s untimely hue
distorts the ordinary calendar.
It’s not the red or green
of festive Christmas.
The lane’s humidity—
the whole town’s drizzle—
obscures for migrants like myself
a history of ardent snow.
We’re unstable in this place,
and still and still the baby’s born.
His fate—gold, a hard rod
and an ice white horse.
And as in all true winter tales,
rumors of the dragon’s end.
.
Greg Huteson‘s poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from The Christian Century, Saint Katherine Review, The Honest Ulsterman, A New Ulster, Better Than Starbucks, and other journals. For the past twenty years, he’s lived in China and Taiwan, and his writing often reflects these contexts.
