Dear Chairman Xi
Please forgive the presumption
but as a longtime student
and lover (yes) of things Chinese
I feel an urge to share
an older man's concern
for our grandchildren
mine of course but yours as well
and all the generations likely to follow
long after we are gone
of course the current military and political
issues present themselves as paramount
but what seems even more at stake
the welfare of your billion and some fellow citizens
and of the planet as a whole
needs - I would think - to be the overriding
focus of those in power like yourself
and so the retreat of the Himaleyan glaciers
whose waters feed the Yangtze and the Yellow River
the Ganges Brahmaputra
the Indus, Mekong and the Irrawaddy
rivers on whom fully one quarter
of the planet's people directly depend
should be of greater interest
to you and to your party
indeed to governments and people everywhere
than the question of Taiwan for instance
or any of a number of strategic interests
because it's clear with climate change
either the era of competing empires
will give way to one of global cooperation
and world-wide mutual support
or our grandchildren will never have the lives
that you and I've been privileged to enjoy