Response Poems the river as a water mother Water as Mother

the river as a water mother—for Yongbo

By Helen Pletts

she is the all-flow, the marginal white reaching Yichun from Harbin and back.

In her long watery slippers, she re-enters Harbin

skulling the night waves ahead of her. Did she follow all her sons into the city?

Night and day both shimmering in her liquid veins,

her darting mouth opening beside the banks to breathe into the grasses of Yichun,

to take a breath here and then smooth it along a Harbin quay.

Staring up into the face of a boy she knew, now a known man, who is liquid fluid,

and sometimes the rainfall acquires him but he is still her son

3rd February 2026,

Water as Mother — In Reply to Helen

By Ma Yongbo

Perhaps I have never truly seen a river, only water,

it shimmers in all the rivers under heaven, yet remains only water

it dons various names and complexions: the black Congo

the turbid Yellow River, and the Songhua, pale grey

like the grey cotton-padded coat my mother wore in my childhood.

What colour is the Thames as it passes the Tower of London?

Does it turn black and red beneath the tower’s shadow?

Where I was born, the river bears a green name

ringed by mountains, their mists flowing down, lingering long upon its surface

I sit on the river’s soft green grass, never once entering the water’s body

I only sit there, watching my father swim, holding up a red flag,

watching mother and sister wash a single blue bedsheet endlessly,

the bedsheet growing heavy in the water, then snapping and fluttering in the sunlight.

Perhaps I have seen rivers, so many rivers,

they, like me, are searching for the sun.

February 5, 2025