Yuan Changming
CityscapeGolden teeth glistening
In the mouth of the city Silver clouds colliding At the tongue tip of day Bite off all darkness They whisper And chew the season well. On Another Rainy Day: for Liu YuIt rains a lot in Vancouver
Often does this rain remind me of The days when you sojourned here With my family, after Father left all of us While walking in the rain, you would Recall, under my big umbrella How you once waited in a drizzle With me in a broken basket on your back To cross the widening river, not far From our village when I was crying hard For a large spoonful of flour soup (you were too Weak and too hungry to produce any milk) Seeing you do nothing about my hunger The ferry man asked, Where is its mom? I am his mother! You replied, tears rolling down With the raindrops on your childish face How old are you then? – Almost 17. It is raining again in Vancouver, and beyond this rain Your voice echoes aloud on the other side of this world Natural ConfrontationsCrow
A baby raven Popping up from nowhere Tries to Establish itself: one dark truth On the skeletal tree top Yawing fiercely Towards the sky, the wind, the buildings The fields and the entire afternoon All so fluffily white In jade-toned snow Bamboo From under A bulky boulder Sitting still, meditating Like a Buddha A tiny bamboo sprout Has just broken the earth Ready to shoot up Against the entire sky Cloud Your body so light Soft, short, never Even having a fixed shape Yet you resist the strongest Summer sun, trying to Shield every ray it shoots down Towards the huge empire Getting increasing hot on earth |
Beyond the Blue: A Parallel Poemthere is no borderline
between sea and sky waves are pushing their colors up towards the air, bloating their calls and songs to bold changing shapes it is a world within nature presenting itself, or what cannot be represented elsewhere separated from the mind the frame always trying to capture a few fish swimming in the waters- Dytiscus Larvae: a Tragicomedy of NatureOne most ferocious robber in the pond
World, observes a zoologist, is a slim, Streamlined insect called the Dytiscus larvae: Lying in ambush on a water grass He suddenly shoots at lightning speed To his prey (or anything moving or smelling Of ‘animal’ in any way, a fat tadpole, for Instance), darts underneath it, then quickly Jerks up his head, grabs it in his jaws Injects his poisonous glandular secretion into it Dissolves its entire inside into a liquid soup And sucks as it swells up first, and then gradually Shrinks to a limp bundle of skin until it finally falls From his fatal kiss. Very few animals According to the observer Even when starved to death would attack Let alone eat an equal-sized animal Of their own species But the Dytiscus does, just as man does Within or without a pond Would/Wouldn't: The Variations of the WingIf every human had a pair of wings
(Made of strong muscles and broad feathers Rather than wax like Icarus’) Who wouldn’t jump high or become eager to fly Either towards the setting sun Or against the rising wind? Who wouldn’t migrate afar with sunshine And glide most straight to a warmer spot In the open space? Indeed Who would continue to confine himself Within the thick walls of a small rented room? Who would willingly take a detour Bump into a stranger, or stumble down Along the way? More important Who would remain fixed here At the same corner all her life Like a rotten stump, hopeless Of a new green growth? |