The above two photos are from Reuters and the caption reads: “Quake Survivor Li Mingcui is one of many people in Sichuan trying to deal with the aftermath of The catastrophe. On May 19, she was rescued (above) from the rubble of a collapsed market in Beichuan. But she lost her husband and granddaughter to the disaster, and yesterday burnt offerings (top) to mourn them.”<\/p>\n
It was the last photo that got to me. Looking into Li Mingcui’s eyes, one can see fear and strength. Later that night, I could not sleep and typed something out. It’s been through a few edits. I’m not really happy with it, but I think if I tweaked it anymore, it’ll become too manipulated.<\/p>\n
She was born in ’62
\nHer name was a label on a bag of rice
\nShe went to school ’til her father died
\nWorked at a factory the gov’ment promised
\nShe married the man she knew all her life
\nShe had a child
\nThank god it was a boy<\/p>\n
So like this
\nShe went on<\/p>\n
Everyone like her
\nNever asking for much
\nLiving ordinarily<\/p>\n
She expected
\nHer child would grow
\nMarry the woman he grew up with<\/p>\n
But as she ran from the falling factory walls
\nHer husband fell through the cracks
\nHer precious boy crushed ‘neath his school<\/p>\n
The day was marked in history books
\nTwelfth May Two thousand and eight
\nIn the afternoon at two twenty eight<\/p>\n
Her child would not grow old
\nNor marry the woman he grew up with<\/p>\n
So now she cries with dry tears
\nAnd through the smell of incense
\nAnd paper ash that blackens the skies
\nShe prays Everyone like her
\nFor time to return
\nTo ordinary.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And this is why I’m not a poet. Haha!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The following photos appeared on The Straits Times Thursday 13th November 2008. The photos from Reuters accompany two articles from Associated Press (AP) and Agence France-Presse (AFP), titled “First Step for Sichuan – jobs” and “Rebuilding a town brick by painful brick”, that took a whole page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[268,269,218],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1968,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions\/1968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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