Asia in turmoil, underground and above
The earth moving beneath the collective feet
As tsunami and Kashmiri earthquake shock stability
Tremors unnerve warlords over the region
Iraq has elections, dictatorship quivers
Gaza evacuates, a defensive attack
Iran threatens and Chechnya still exists
While avian flu poses airborne destruction to the living world
Now the streets of Pudong shudder the most vibrantly
With excitement and knee-trembling fear
Six hundred years after the first Ming throne
Wrested global monopoly
Suppressing the Khans, Genghis and Kublai, and other Moghul lords
Only to succumb to the introversion and insecurity endemic in the region
Shanghai and Beijing have now risen, Phoenix-like
From the ashes of the Cultural Revolution
The Huangpu, the present day Thames, Seine, Danube and Hudson
The right bank of the east eclipsing the left bank of the west
Wall Street and the Square Mile signal they are waking, as giants are supposed to do
But the Gullivers are held by the ties of the Lilliputian minnows
From street-side trading to the virtual floor
Rings are being run around the foreigners
Lulled by the ubiquitous Starbucks and fast food
Stunned by the energy and fast thinking
Pudong was a marsh, a wasteland, until late
While Paris, London and Berlin sought supremacy in Europe
The marshes recovered and reclaimed land
To dwarf Canary Wharf
To kill the Footsie and CAC
China will own us, control us
Play games with us, laugh at us
As the marshes of Pudong stand aloft
Shanghai, China, October 2005
