Horse-Lords of the Sky
Chengdu, Sichuan, China
2025, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
we came in a jeep coughing dust
me and the camera a blinking eye
from the concrete hive the signal towers
where trees are potted and sky is sliced
into postcards
to this place where the earth breathes
and the air cuts like cold steel
Zhaosu.
where the mountains are gods
old and cracked and crowned with snow
eternal
and the Kazakhs move with the grass
like the wind itself had bones
and hooves
we filmed them
old men with faces like saddle leather
eyes squinting into sunsets we couldn’t fathom
their hands knowing the horse
the way our hands know a screen’s swipe
instinct carved by generations
watching clouds
listening to the earth groan
or sing
depending on the rain
we slept in a yurt
felt the felt walls hold back the vast
heard the horses stamp and snort
outside the circle of firelight
a warmth older than cities
deeper than Wi-Fi
the fire spoke of ancestors
who rode the same sky-pressed plains
who read the stars not for satellites
but for the turn of seasons
the path of the herd
the whisper of snow coming
outside
the world wasn’t a picture
it was the smell of dung and wild mint
the ache of cold mountain air in the lungs
the thrum of hooves on hardpan
a rhythm that shook your guts
made you feel alive
not just scrolling
alive like blood is alive
pumping
back in the hive
the air tastes stale
filtered
the screens glow with apocalypse
while outside the window
a potted plant dies slowly
for lack of real sun
real rain
we saw resilience
not in slogans
but in the old woman’s hands
kneading dough
while her eyes tracked the herd
on the far slope
in the way they packed the yurt
moved the horses
faced the wind
not conquering
belonging
the nomads knew
what the concrete forgets
we are not lords
we are part of the dirt
the grass
the horse’s sweat
the mountain’s sigh
cut the cord
step outside the hive
feel the real wind
the ancient sky
before the screens
flicker
and die
leaving only the static hum
of our own disconnect.
Reflection
My poem is based on an experience while attending BASIS to partcipate in a documentary team in Zhaosu, Xinjiang, during summer 2023. Assisting director Zhang Ruixin, we lived with Kazakh nomads on the Balasu Grassland beneath the Tianshan Mountains. Witnessing their profound, generational connection to horses and the land, I was taken by the experience of an alternative lifestyle that is polar to my life in the metropolis of Chengdu. I wanted to capture that raw essential bond with the land and the jarring return to urban disconnection. Living immersed with the nomads taught me the true meaning of "Connections to Nature." It wasn't just going outside; it was becoming a part of life that doesn't distinguish the outside and the inside. I saw resilience in action, not as a struggle against nature, but as belonging to it. This was clear in their skills, their values, and, regrettably, their way of life's encroachment from modernity. They live with the land, demonstrating a healthy human-nature symbiosis often lost in cities. My message is this: We are not separate from nature. We are "part of the dirt, the grass, the horse’s sweat." The nomads' ancient wisdom and quiet strength are a vital reminder. Disconnecting is a choice. Feel the real wind. Remember where we come from.