Poetry
Countdown Machine - SCMP Pictures
Two Zero Four Seven
28 May, 2016
In Hong Kong, an art installation is taken down when the artists explain what it really means.
Stop all the clocks, Hong Kong people.
That which we hold dear about this city
is likely to end in 2047.
But if we do not recognise the objective
passing of time, might we stay
in the present? Might we conjugate
still on the street and believe in the policy
of one country, two systems?
Might we forget 2047 as a momentous date,
but consider it a random four-digit
number, signifying the money
a recent university graduate has in her bank
or the miles between two estranged
lovers working in separate cities?
But perhaps it is better to collectively
count down the year, the month,
the day, the minute. Let 2047 be displayed
on tall buildings and spoken of often,
before our shared euphemism
becomes another censored year.
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