Elements

      

By Changming Yuan

Water   1/ Water of Life   sweat teardrops and what flows with blood through my heart all taste as salty as seawater to the tongue of my poetry    except the dew that glistens with morning glows or in starlight   2/ Water of Love   with her transparent tenderness coded with colorless violence she is always ready to support or sink the powerful boat                         sailing south   Earth and Air   Some sing life will restart out of soil Some sing out of air From what you’ve never heard of You give up on those who hate soil But if it were to be born once again You doubt you had any idea of love Not to sing that for construction air Would not hold even with sunlight Or suffice Earth   i think not; therefore, I am not what I am, but I have a color the skin my heart wears inside out tattooed intricately             with footprints of history   Fire   1/ Fire Mudra   Purest energy Purest spirit Keeps burning Inside her womb Like a bold and brilliant ball Like an inner sun Its light evaporating her entire body Into a thin mist of light Slowly vanishing into the heavens  Although its shape still remains Around her tiny spot of consciousness   With her palms put together against her naval She witnesses her own soul Spiraling, dancing Between the fire and the light   2/ Fire Power   your soft power bursting from your ribcage as enthusiastic as a phoenix is supposed to be when you fly your lipless kisses you reach out your hearts                         until they are all broken   Metal   1/ Inner Metal   digging deep in the remotest corners within my body i collect all the minerals hidden behind my thickened heart or close to my freak soul and refine them into a flat alloy which i can wear like a red badge of courage when i charge into the battlefield   perhaps i should have shaped it into a sword or a dagger?   2/ Outer Metal   he used to be totally dull-colored because he came from the earth’s inside now he has become a super-conductor for cold words, hot pictures and light itself             all being transmitted through his throat     Winds   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 Wood   rings in rings have been opened or broken like echoes that roll from home to home each containing fragments of green trying to tell their tales                   from the forest’s depths     Yuan Changming grew up in an isolated village, started to learn the English alphabet in Shanghai 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, eleven chapbooks (most recently LIMERENCE) as well as appearances in the Best of Best Canadian Poetry & BestNewPoemsOnline, among 1879 other literary outlets across 46 countries. In March 2021, Yuan served on the jury for Canada's 44th National Magazine Awards (poetry category). Lotus Image & License: Depositphotos_3273810