Another Winter Vision

This is not a dream to be decoded

But beyond the withering bushes

Of a strangely familiar mountain

Where all roads and trails come to

A cold end, where sweat and blood 

Are frozen together, a purple lightning

Has stricken open a boulder-like tree stump

Bound with a band of iron or bronze

There, close to the thickest root

Sprouts up an unstained red bud

Getting ready for great growth again; will

It bear fruit for every herbivorous creature? Will

It offer shades to each wondering soul?

Gathas (2): Absorption

Arms widely open

Fingers pointing to the sky

Whole body staying straight

You come to stand still, upright

On a stump like a poplar

Your spirits reaching out like its branches

Taking in all the air and sunlight

You can embrace

Allowing the the stump to revive

Through your warm breaths

Where your selfhood gains longevity

From the myriads of its roots

In this long-forlorn forest

Until you and the stump\

Become one and the same

With a new tall tree

Forever green

You Are a Buddha

As long as you can

Go along, or

Go alone

With Karma

As long as you are ready

To accept, or

Give up

Everything, anything

Profile

lying down too low

for too long

how this rock longs to rise

standing boldly high against the autumn sky

like a douglas fir, or

a bamboo shoot

but it is always the tallest one

that suffers most attacks from the wind

that is cut down before all other trees

Configurations of Cards: A Poker Poem

            how i long to remove all the iron in my blood, and make it a big spike so that I can drive it into a crack of time

           

The Spade

not unlike the proud Prometheus

you stole from an unmapped paradise

the white seeds of peace and purity

sowing them tender and graceful

with softly solid stillness

in a dry and dreamless wintry land

like muted wishes flooring the human heart

The Heart

like a fishing hook thrown into the lake

every nerve getting tight and straight

you feel the sunpainted fingers of serenity

trying to catch misty moonlight swimming like trouts

but each time detouring around your soul 

as it takes a prolonged bath

in the spring water, clear and clean 

The Diamond

on the other coloured side

of summer stands a lonely being

being alone at the bushy and muddy bank

of a wide but unknown river

looking beyond the blue universe

dying speechless without leaving a will

at the boundary between light and shadow

The Club

despite the absence of

an inspired wind, all

fallen leaves giggle, busy reporting

to their invisible roots

like infants smiling from ear to ear

when recalling all the fun 

they used to enjoy in their former lives

---

Within an Open Bottle



All bees die
While charging towards light

Every fly survives
By fleeing into darkness

What if the empty bottle rotates?




Changming Yuan, author of Chansons of a Chinaman and 4-time Pushcart nominee, grew up in rural China and published several monographs before moving to North America. Currently Yuan teaches in Vancouver and has had poetry appearing in over 400 literary publications worldwide, including Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Cortland Review, Counterexample Poetics, Exquisite Corpse and RHINO.