The eye reverts this morning
To black: total curtain call?
Funereal grief? Skies tumbling

Thunder and bolts that blind
And light the cleared center?
Drop-dead fatigue behind

Security lines? Black garment bags
Bearing canisters, batons, bullets,
The BS of violence? The eye lags,

Half-asleep, among the other blacks
Who, waking, silently have dressed
For school and work, who walk

As if this morning is everyday,
Swaddled in black tees, shorts, shirts,
Yellow twists safety-pinned to say:

You’re Hong Kong born-again,
Knowing finally who you are,
Subject, not subordinate slain,

Nothing’s been lost. And I now awake
Am also risen to the beauty of black.

October 3, 2014, Festival Walk