This feeling, must it wait to become memory?

                                The moment passes, and is already lost in fog.

                                                                / Li Shangyin, Tang Dynasty /

In the crowd, at Luoyang railway station,

On the platform, straight and motionless she stood,

A symbol of State Power's assertion,

That the teeming crowd clearly understood.

She was a policewoman on duty,

Straight-backed, detached, watchful over the crowd,

With a face that radiated beauty,

But on which a smile could not be allowed.

I looked at her through the train's dim window

And for a fleeting moment our eyes met,

Her face lit up in a coy, smiling glow

And my heart swirled into a minuet.

As the train began to move on the track,

I waved to her… and she smiled and waved back…

© P. J. Oszmann (October 2006)

© Illustration: Frame captured in Studio 8 from analogue video recording, enhanced in Photoshop (Nov 2006) (The video was taken from a moving train through a dirty window; hence the inferior quality of both the video and the resulting still photograph)

Footnote:

Within the strict confines of a sonnet it is virtually impossible to render a brief encounter in such a way that it would fit into a broader context. At best I could only create an illusion that could easily be misunderstood, at worst it could give the impression of frivolity.

The brief encounter I attempted to describe above had an inexplicable and deep impact on me, which - I sense - the sonnet could not fully express or explain. In fact - as I stated in the introduction - it defies description. I therefore made another attempt to describe the events more fully in a short story, which I posted here simultaneously under the same title, amongst my "Short Stories" pages. Even in the story - I feel - I failed to capture the magical essence of that moment.

Never the less please read the story (if you are interested); it will at least explain why I chosen the frivolous sounding title of "China Doll" for both the sonnet and the story.

The short video clip of "the smile and wave" can be seen by clicking on the link below:

http://www.AuthorsDen.com/adstorage/6177/ChinaDollVideo.mpg

ChinaDol