Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Poetry 2017 | Page 156

Lost
Diocesan Girls' School, Tam, Dilys – 16
The slippers traced the same pathway
With the turnings of the page
Slowly, walk’d into the footsteps
Of the heroes of the age.
The song resonates past the looming shades
Where the heart of the city beats.
In drifting flakes of gold
The glory is retold.
But all that glitters is fleeting —
The alleyways twist, shadows morphing
Past the Concession
And its muted glow.
Yesterday’s dreams of urban opulence
Bloom and flourish in the dark;
And wilt and wither with the pulsing lights,
In the heights of all that's past.
Fluttering, the memories tumbled
Across the page,
Lost to the torrents of the Yangtze —
Lost.
Perhaps
The Whampoa flows not,
Nor do Ghosts linger-
It is the bridge that goes forward;
It is the moment that glitters.
So, this is the City
Where one is held fast,
Or else, swept aside —
For there is no present;
Only the endless past
Rushing into the future.