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Gladys Aylward
(born in London, 1902 – 1970)
That’s how that popular movie showed it –
but maybe that’s really how it happened.
It rained on those who stayed close to books
and mantelpieces, tea, cookies and wine
while one humble London nanny, Gladys,
Christian convert and adventuress
of unconstrained tongue,
sallied forth with meager savings
to liberate distant prisoners,
or more precisely free, anoint, and kiss
the hundreds of bound female feet
and souls.
In a cold train car – wedged between
coarse lumberjacks and soldiers –
slowly respiring, she watched the train
cut like a blade through the hard heart
of those open spaces, till the morn
that Trans-Siberian Railway
plunged into China’s endless samovar.
Visibly alone, unmarried,
Somewhere in the dust of Yangcheng Province