Vavarium

      

By Yuan Changming

Aren’t We All a Special Species   Kept together with the entire Solar system enclosed Within an ever larger bubble if   If only it were true as They have newly discovered     Near the Zoo   A hen party is held Around a sitting duck While there is a bull meeting Where you can see the elephant Getting the goose when it tries to tell The difference between the sheep and the goats Farther away, a black snake falls down Neither fish, flesh nor fowl Smelling a rat somewhere As you are being showed the lions Ready to take the bull by the horns Until the cows come home   While learning about birds and bees I feel ants in my pants The cat’s got my tongue Hey, I do not mean to chicken out Or clam up on these dog days Rather, I would try to be an eager beaver Hold my horses When I have a cow That’s what a little bird told me About how they made a beeline for Pigging out Before it rains dogs and cats On the Campus   Every school year there is As much summer As many a tree here Than in my native village in China   But there is not a single cicada At any twig, or among any clusters Of leaves, a cicada that I used to listen to Singing aloud monotonously, like a   Fine saw working on a rusty metal Or between my boyish ears   What I hear is a deafening American voice About selling every human Behavior, every human whim  That keeps penetrating each animal ear Outside the Shopping Mall     Never are those ants-like creatures Crawling to joint it – under low bushes Across trails, at cracks, where It occasionally dwells. All the tiny Minds go up through the words like Dust rising above trees, as the wind Keeps blowing, and the ladder reaches Higher against the Babel Tower Disciples across the whole world  Gather to approach Menfucius And Menfucus approaches Confucius And Confucius approaches Laozi, who Is still trying hard, harder than Socrates To find Tao above yin and yang Within the Observatory   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 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? At the Zen Temple: one (self-portraying) word can be worth even more than 10,000 pictures although many people would allege that the opposite is true   In-Lightened   Bio: Yuan Changming co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan. Writing credits include 16 chapbooks, 12 Pushcart nominations for poetry and 3 for fiction besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), BestNewPoemsOnline and 2129 other publications across 51 countries. A poetry judge for Canada's 44th National Magazine Awards, Yuan began writing and publishing fiction in 2022. His debut novel Detaching, 'silver romance' The Tuner and short story collection Flashbacks are all available at Amazon, his duology Edening due out in 2026.