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Seasonal Change
In the shape of a zephyr
The whole spring
Is finally
Beginning
To green, budding right
From inside a single heart
After 10-million-minute white wait of winter
Open Opera
in zephres of april
this solo performance
of sweet cherry trees
white clusters of vowels
pink chorus of assonance
there is no accompany
of leafy consonance
except bold internal rhymes
between heartbeats & footsteps
Flying with the Zephyr: the Variations of the Wing
If every human had a pair of wings
(Made of strong mussels and broad feathers
Rather than wax like Icarus’)
Who wouldn’t jump high or become eager to fly
Either towards the setting sun
Or along the rising zephyr?
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?
Besides Zephyrs
There are winds to lead and winds to avoid
There are winds to sweep like a million unseen brooms
Winds to break every head on the bare land
Winds to caress or flirt with the tenderest spring petals
Winds to uproot century old oak or willow trees
Winds like heavy sighs of history blowing out every light
Winds of leaves, flowers, rains, snows, sand and dust
Winds that whisper, winds that whistle like screaming monsters
Winds that you can never walk against, pushing buildings and cities
Winds that swirl around and make the whole world dizzy
Winds that drive waves upon beaches like stampeding horses
Winds that send roofs, beds and pigs up above dark clouds
There are winds that blow all golden sunshine into white winter
Winds that strike human hearts like bells ringing fiercely
Winds that never stop waving, wallowing and warring
Even if you long for just one damned moment of peace
Chasing Something Absent
like a whirl
beyond the shadow
you are the presence
of a shadow
that is
rarely the reality
whenever you are
you are not what is present
where you stand
you join the light
and never
the light disperses
to fill in the moments
when your spirit is absent
few others have the impulses
for standing
but you do
to chase something absent
Wild West Willow of Last Winter
What a strangely familiar blizzard
That has blown your bare body
To the far end of the prairie
Standing stiff at the still cliff
You listen to the muted monologue of the valley
With all your hardened heart
Then and there, in the shape of the wind
You start to shake off your silver branches
Like a huge skeletal seagull beating its wings wildly
Eager to flap into the northern lights
Yuan Changming grew up in an isolated village, started to learn the English alphabet at age nineteen and 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 eleven Pushcart nominations, nine chapbooks & awards, as well as publications in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17),& BestNewPoemsOnline, among nearly 1,800 other, across 46 countries.
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