Reeducation
Those barefoot years
sprout like rice seedlings
in the fields plowed
with callused memories.
I was 18 in 1974,
sent down to the countryside
to pick cotton, plant rice,
harvest corn.
Reeducation in the fields
replaced the English
learned for six years
at boarding school.
Farmwork required
strong hands and body
not the somersaults
of ABCs in the mind.
Yet, I dared not leave
English alone like chaff.
It was funny
sometimes a slogan
leaped off my tongue:
Long live Chairman Mao!
The first sentence
I learned in English
and I taught local kids.
They recited the slogan
like a tongue twister
until the day Mao died.
The End of the Road
When you reach the end of the road
you wonder where you are:
the village that offered you
a field for reeducation,
the homeland that’s fading
out of your thoughts,
the itty-bitty town that’s
sheltered you for 30 years,
or the footprints that backtrack
to the start of the road
where you hear
your first cry as a newborn,
where your first language
learned is Mandarin
and where you live and write
in a second language—English.
Life is karma, its end
starts a new journey.
Ruoyang Tea
for Jia Junying
It’s oneness
of heaven
and earth
tune
of rain
and wind
dance
of mountain
and river
shine
of sun
and moon
flow
of nature
through body
unity
of all
souls
Sip it—
it’s chi
of the universe
where all stars
twinkle
in a place of no place
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Jianqing Zheng is the author of The Dog Years of Reeducation (Madville, 2023) and recipient of the 2024 artist fellowship from the Mississippi Arts Commission. He teaches at Mississippi Valley State University where he edits Valley Voices. His poetry has recently appeared in journals including Birmingham Poetry Review, Mississippi Review, and Poetry South.
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Jury S. Judge is an internationally published artist, writer, poet, and cartoonist. Her Astronomy Comedy cartoons were published in The Lowell Observer. She was interviewed on the television news program NAZ Today for her work as a cartoonist. Her artwork has been featured in over 135 literary magazines, including the covers of Blue Mesa Review, 3 Elements Review, Glass Mountain, and Levitate. She has also been interviewed by Streetlight Magazine and The Antonym. She graduated magna cum laude with a BFA from the University of Houston, Clear Lake, in 2014.
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