I don't know what I am trying to find
As I look through these museum houses;
Portraits of the privileged come to mind,
Ordering about their quiet servants
While they count their profits in fields of rice
Tilled by the backbreaking labor of slaves
Working outside in the dark, moonless nights
And denied all the ease and elegance.

A city of grace, haunted by the pain
Undermining the trappings of culture,
Beautiful to see, but hard to explain
in terms of the cost to human nature.

As the carriages of tourists drive by,
I watch the last camellia blossoms die.