March in Karlstad, Where God is Speeding Past Poem by Bai Hua

Early morning, what is the quivering calmness evading?

Karlstad! Tall gods and goddesses flash by

speeding… before the City Hotel

Empty streets; ice lake, European container houses with no one…

As a heart from 2011 walks on a stone bridge of 1797

the naked birch tree nerves terrify me

In March, a textile factory springs out of the forest

Klässbols!

Please! Stir furiously the art of afternoon. In harmony

yet another god speeds past —

I see a Chinese scientist holding an iPhone

crossing the Swedish sky like a falling star