The Surprise.(FOUR POEMS FROM CHINA)(Poem)

 
THE SURPRISE 
 
   Deep in the middle of my seventh night in China, 
   in the village of the Autonomous People of Dong, 
   away in the northernmost hills of the Province of Guanxi, 
   the costumes and performances flamboyant, the final dance 
   farewell, the music made vigour seem bright, all fun and fast 
   fraternity, soaring up beneath the deepest blue, the housefronts 
   echoing shrilly, wind and wood, no wonder when the leader took us 
   into that formation looping underarms and threading through 
   the circled group in what seemed then abandonment, 
   the singing and the dancing rose and circled in ...