North: after the storm, all dust hung up
in the crowded air, with his human face
frozen into a dot of dust
and a rising speckle of dust
melted into his face
to avoid this cold climate
of his antarctic dream
he relocated his naked soul
at the dawn of summer
South: like a raindrop on a small lotus leaf
unable to find the spot
to settle itself down
in an early autumn shower
my little canoe drifts around
near the horizon
beyond the bare bay
Center: deep from the thick forest
a bird’s call echoes
from ring to ring within each tree
hardly perceivable
before it suddenly
dies off into the closet
of a noisy human mind
West: not unlike a giddy goat
wandering among the ruins
of a long lost civilization
you keep searching in the central park
a way out of the tall weeds
as nature makes new york
into a mummy blue
East: in her beehive-like room
so small that a yawning stretch
would readily awaken
the whole apartment building
she draws a picture on the wall
of a tremendous tree that keeps growing
until it shoots up
from the cemented roof
Yuan Changming, 8-time Pushcart nominee and author of 5 chapbooks (including Kinship [2015] and The Origin of Letters [2015]), is the most widely published poetry author who speaks Chinese but writes in English. Growing up in a remote village, Yuan began to learn the English alphabet at 19 and published monographs on translation before moving to Canada. With a PhD in English, Yuan currently co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan in Vancouver and, since mid-2005, has had poetry appearing in 1049 literary journals/anthologies across 34 countries, including Best Canadian Poetry (2009,12,14), BestNewPoemsOnline, Cincinnati Review and Threepenny Review.
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