Spring Festival Time Again Poem by Raymond Farrell

Today
As I sit
Under the locust tree
I reflect on the fact that
It's Spring Festival
Time again in China
It will soon
Be Chinese New Year
The undergraduates finished
Their exams last week
And have vacated
The university campus
No more crowds of people
And the sense of loneliness
Has come again
As it did last year
At this time
But this year
It is slightly different
In the past few months
A stone's throw
From my dormitory
A man has begun
Roasting and selling chestnuts
About three days a week
The smell of roasting chestnuts
Filling my nostrils
As I past by
Has drawn me over
To buy a bag of nuts
But now, he too is gone
Away on holidays
Only compounding my loneliness.