The Chinese Women Talking on the Benches
Brandon Cook
When my family and I pass the Chinese women
They who sit eternally on the benches by the gate of the nature center
I can’t understand a word, but I get the gist:
There’s laughter, there’s mirth, there’s merriment
And there’s the just hushed rush of gossip
Which tone must be universal, across cultures
Coupled as it is with raised eyebrows
As if we are truly scandalized and not satisfied
Age is relative, but they are old enough…sixty, sixty-five?
And what strikes me as we walk by—
My four-year-old throwing rocks and running like a squirrel when she sees the ducks—
Is how passionate, how enthralled they are
As their laughter rolls down to the valley of sighs
There are still things to talk about, then
We do not exhaust each languorous hall
We are visitors to a museum, who never see it all