The Season of War

By: Yucheng Tao

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Spring and summer perished.
The season of war was coming.

Torches burned into the snow,
as branches broke onto the damaged streets.
A faint flame intensified the purity of whiteness.
Did the warriors’ pain vanish behind fogged windows?
The pain left its mark on the road.

In the dark winter,
the traces left by the dead
fragmented into blood art.
Death arrived with an ever-changing face.

Morning — someone still lived.
Evening — someone again died.
Midnight — someone awoke from a nightmare.

Warriors, unable to sleep,
stood like pillars, defending —
like turning gears, fighting
until they died.

And sword and shield,
like a cross in their heart,
faced the beloved horse,
both bearing the same fate in tears.

Children, like newly born shoals,
could not know war’s cruelty —
how life was destroyed,
falling into the abyss,
whose depth no one had ever known.

In the season of war,
as fervent as fireballs of death,
no one had ever known its heat —
how it could melt a person’s life
like an inch of the winter snow.

The snow covered the bodies,
almost forgetting
the cruel season in memory.

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Yucheng Tao is a Chinese international student based in Los Angeles, where he studies songwriting. His work and has appeared in “Wild Court” (UK), “The Lake” (UK), “Red Ogre Review” (UK), “Aloka Magazine” (UK), “Cathexis Northwest Press,” and “NonBinary Review,” where he was also interviewed. He was named a semifinalist for the Winds of Asia Award by Kinsman Quarterly. His work has been featured in over twenty journals, including “Apocalypse Confidential,” “The Arcanist,” and more.