Over the Pacific: A Chan Poem
Flying high enough means to Traveling far enough To a new realm, where There is neither borderline Between sea and sky Between day and night Nor distinction Between yesterday and tomorrow Where every shape is softly roundish Every line is tenderly curvy While all colors become fluffily white Like dehydrated snow You would find yourself sailing alone To an outer Hyperborea On a heavenly boat With no more attachments to the earth There and then, your entire selfhood Shrinks into a tiny dot of light One and the same with your soul, your spirit Gliding, cruising In perfect pacificity Sightseeing at Harrison Lake under a wishful willow on the bench's bare back are awkwardly carved many names, initials, heartshapes some densely isolated others thinly connected with plus or equal signs making a whole new monument a tortured totem of tourism unoccupied, probably reserved there's no sudden heat of hope or quick burial of burned burins yet like a huge fish fossilized sitting still in open solitude towards the hills drifting beyond as if to wait at the waterfront for the long lost syllables stranded below the setting sun Big Rock Mouth Far from Zhangjiajie, the UNESCO-designated nature park In China; farther from the Louise Lake in Banff The tourist hotspot in Canada; yet close to the little town Where I was born, and even closer to The paradise on earth, your are actually an unknown corner Falling off from Eden, rather than a natural reservoir Hidden in a remote valley, where hills are more Like green elephants, where the water is sweeter Than Coke Cola, with each tree more outstanding More graceful than a fashion model walking around the Eiffel Tower With each rock more artistic than a masterpiece of Beethoven or Picasso. Even though no tourist has ever passed by You feel neither lonely nor upset: is it because you find yourself Fully fulfilled among the words arrayed in his poetry? On the Honghu Lake Among dozens of colonies of lotus The flowers grow in crowds of colors White, pink, red, blue or purple Except all leaves green, as stems arise Straightly from blackish muddy lakebeds As if to pave a path for a patrolling Buddha The most versatile plant in my original country Lotus is now seen in terms of seeds and roots only Both sweet and crisp to its finicky eaters While the much lauded purity of its big flowers Has become a forgotten foreign cliché Under a cluster of tall and broad leaves The boatman in straw rain cape suddenly squatted Not to hide from the summer shower Chasing the giggling seedpod pickers But to reveal a secret to me touring from Canada Each of those standing tall above the lake Has a groom lying flat on the water nearby Visiting the Weisui Lake The same kinds of pine trees The bushes no less bushy or brilliant The same lines of mountain ranges As irregularly handsome The waters also composed of h2o Certainly just as clear and clean With even more lively fishes swimming In leisure, and in this unknown valley How come it has not become a costly resort Like the famous louise lake there At the feet of rocky mountains, for instance? At Badalin, the Great Wall Among thousands of climbers Like so many fallen autumn leaves Drifting up and down along an embedding stream Names carved with keys and coins Weathered over days, years and centuries So many lives have been lost As witnessed by fewer and fewer worn bricks Breathless, I spotted a foreign black woman breathing hard With a pair of shiny crutches Standing against the darkening sky How could you manage to come all the way here By yourself? I wonder Metasequonia King Neither the oldest Nor the tallest Not even the thickest But the only survivor of a whole lost civilization You have been standing for centuries in my home province Against all storms and seasons Among scattered cottages with straw-thatched roofs Walled with corn-stems, deep in an unknown valley You were discovered as a living fossil the other day And ever since then, a park has been expanded Into a national reserve, where worshippers keep Coming to pay their homage, where your offspring Begin their long march into every city Of the new world, where you are growing Strong and straight, shading the main streets and Back lanes, as if to remind all foreigners of Real dinosaurs and real ice ages Not unlike me, or my fellow diasporas Yuan Changming published monographs on translation before leaving China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver; credits include ten Pushcart nominations, the Naji Naaman's Literary Prize 2018, Best of the Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1,449 others worldwide. yuan changming @ Poetry Pacific https://poetrypacific.blogspot.ca https://happyyangsheng.blogspot.ca Lotus Image & License: Depositphotos_32738103_s-2015 |
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