Rice Fields

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dedicated to the descendants of the Goths in Ukraine
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In western China there's some rice,
selling on markets,
but there are no rice fields.
There are deserts, plateaus, mountains.
There the snow in winter
and it's as white as rice paper.
Because apart from the Chinese,
rice fields need a lot of water and heat.
There are Xinjiang and Tibet
and a handful of Chinese in Western China. 
Local people hate them.
They are foreigners there.
We are also strangers here in Ukraine.
Locals don't like us either.
They call us Jewish (actually  we are not)
But are we to blame
that rice fields in the Kherson region
no longer harvesting?
Are our spectacled eyes the reason
that the water no longer flows to rice fields,
that labor flows the West,
and the best brains and skills
also flow there?
We'll not drink river tea*,
because it is a poison.
We will taste y-long or pu-er
made in porcelain teapot as thin as rice paper.
We will go for fish at the pond.
It will be a long meditation on a float
among mermaid flowers.
We'll achieve enlightenment,
inhaling the astringent aroma of alder
watching the endless rice fields
on the plateaus of Tibet.
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 * tea made of white and yellow water lilies Nymphaea candida and Nuphar luteum
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 © Copyright: Valentin Luchenko, 2020