1.
Our wireless to Moscow has broken down,
the Comintern orders crackle and pop. and splutter
in senseless fury, unable to instruct us in China.
We meet in the deserted mansion of a runaway warlord,
a town known for opium-soaked leaders, giving us
a rest from aggressive strategies.
Bo Gun rises first: to remind us of the triumph
of the 4th Annihilation Campaign, prior to our recent disasters
and then Zhou Enlai speaks softly, full of remorse:
I am to blame, he admits. Many agree, yet his modesty
so heartfelt touches us deeply.
2.
Mao stands indifferent to
the waffling of Bo Gun and the artful craft of Zhou,
a volcano of sardonic words and rage at deaths of those
we have lost carelessly due to stupid planning.
We defended what? Sewing machines, printing presses,
men were sacrificed for that?
His spears of words hit the midriffs to Otto Braun
and Bo Gun directly, weakening their solar plexuses.
Like an unexpected force of nature, a typhoon or an earthquake,
Mao write himself into history, breaking the etiquette of face.
Why did we force all our young men into the Red Army?
Our farms were untended! We had no food to eat! None left
to sow the fields and to reap the harvests. Insanity.
And could we not see that every city and every province
is unique? It has its own geography, hills, mountains, rivers.
No maps! We began by walking by day with German airplanes
sent by Chiang, circling us overhead, thousands died.
Why did we not unite our soldiers with a cohesive strategy?
Thousands of new recruits ran at the first sound of gunfire.
What are we fighting for?
3.
as the week passes, more and more of us rise
to applaud Mao, who offers no consoling words, no flattery,
no trickery, or tubs of pretty rhetoric for us to fall into,
his startling honesty wins him friends
where a lesser man might quickly make bitter enmity.
The last day, Zhou rises to close, thanking Mao sincerely
for pointing out all his errors.
He transfers control of the Red Army to Mao, unable
to ask Moscow for approval, Mao and Zhou unite.
As Otto Braun, is now diminished in power,
with his agents still scurrying about Tsingyi
hunting for batteries, sparks and plugs, cords and wires
to repair the lines of communication
broken by the high mountains of Guizhou
our Red Army now detached by an accident of geography
watch the last pale bubbles of sound from Europe
fade gently in the amber twilight
tonight we will sleep peacefully.
Arielle Gabriel, International Copyright 2022