A Political Prisoner Listening to a Cicada

While the year sinks westward, I hear a cicada
Bid me to be resolute here in my cell,
Yet it needed the song of those black wings
To break a white-haired prisoner's heart. . . .
His flight is heavy through the fog,
His pure voice drowns in the windy world.
Who knows if he be singing still?—
Who listens any more to me?