| GREEN MEDITATION By Changming Yuan ThicketStanding straight against the frozen sky Your skeletons are the exquisite calligraphy Of the seasonYour name is writNot in water But with wind VentifactingA fact of fiction A fiction of fact Carved with the invisible Chisels of the tropical wind You will never undertake a finishing touchNor do you really need one To bloom your inner being Into a solid shape of beauty Weathering against all civilization Green MeditationWhat do trees Think of?All their lives they have been Contemplating, so attentivelyRealized: mindful for certain Yet without a feelingDown from the earthly depth Up against the ethereal boundaryA loose thought travelling swiftly From bough to bough. MeditatingOn what to think of Rite of Passage With a storm With a gull With your breathGoes the thought With a vague vision Beyond the boglandWith your heart Hawking aloud in the wild With dripping bloodAn unformed concept A shoal of consciousness Bubbling with feelingWith a photon With a quantum With your mind concentrated On a twisted other Natural Ironies (4) 1/ / SnaggingYou have long since died But you will never fallStanding deadly among leafy growths Your body embodies a rebirth Greening close to your rotten cycles2/ MoonbowFew humans look up At you, but you reflect And refract just as many colors As much beauty as a sunbowWith little warmth of the day But countless secrets about darkness3/ WhaleYou hope to make a loud last call that ReachesFar beyond yourself, on yourself, yourself reachable; an AgitatedVociferous spirit in the Pacific, cruising Under night currents, yellAs if for an echo, though too loud to be heard For the un-whale like Listening to the Mountain MurmuringTwenty minimeters of pink petals.Twenty minimetres of stretch and reach Floral foil, twenty minimeters Of soil, grass, dew, bushSitting in green meditation about The balance between yin and yang Myriad of leaves, Falling down with mists Of last night approaching – twenty minimetersOf ethereal presence, kissing The thick ridges – is the soul The melody of equanimity? Insects sloughing offIn chameleon-rhythms. You stopped as you heard themTwenty minimeters of dandelions rolling against The vastness of sky and mountain |
 | Yuan Changming, nine-time Pushcart and one-time Best of the Net nominee, grew up in a remote village, started to learn English in Shanghai at age 19, and published monographs on translation before moving out of China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan in Vancouver, and has poetry appearing in Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Cincinnati Review, Threepenny Review and 1259 others across 38 countries. |