Anno Domini 2024 should have been called,

By everyone else, Republic of China 113th Year

Carrying firecrackers to my great-grandfather’s tomb

              Detraining at Huang Mei Village, Hubei, China.

                            Evening. My grandfather and father kneed

Facing the mossed gravestone, carved Tie Nie, Born in

Guang Xu 34th Year, Died in Republic of China 37th Year.

              His name Tie means iron. He named his son Tie Chun, or

Iron Spring. Tie died in the last year of the republic, in

January. He wouldn’t know that a year later,

Kuomintang was driven to Taiwan, and Mao built Communist China,

Liberating republic calendar with Anno Domino. He’d be surprised at the

Measured currency printed with Mao, or the fact that he can

Not visit the Republic of China in Taiwan without a visa,

              Or that he has become a nationless soul. He’s a republican citizen

              Perished in the enemy’s soil. But would he genuinely care? He

                            Quietly sowed his land; the republic was born in Wuhan. He harvested

                            Rice; Japanese occupied capital Nanjing. His second baby was born;

                                                 Secrete Communist intelligence station was destroyed.

                                                 Tie Chung was the name he gave to his second son;

                            Unaware that Japanese surrendered in that blossoming spring. He’s a

                            Victim of tuberculosis, grounded in bed; President Chiang lost the

              War to the Communist and retreated to Taiwan before

              Xmas. My grandfather never remembers his father’s face.

Yet, I imagine Tie to be a skinny and stubborn man, never had

Zest about patriotism or could tell capitalism from socialism.