Pathway to Epiphany
Towards the summer sky
I make a shape of heart
With my clumsy hands
This is the feel of life
I tell the season
This is to illuminate the dark
Dreamland like a search light
I tell the crow stalking behind
Like the spirit of my late
Father. This is to gather all
The positive energy in the world &
Send it to the future. I tell my
Unborn grandson. This is the cycle
Of life & the philosopher’s stone
I tell the greening copse. This is
The circle to fill in with cries
& laughs.
I tell my other self
Beyond the cosmic wall, as if
To balance yin and yang
In the whole universe
· · ·
Soulmating: for Qi Hong
He lives on the yang side of the planet
& she on the yin; through Platonic love
They maintain the balance in (human) nature
His is hard & straight like ‘1’ while hers
As soft & circular as ‘0’; coupled together
They make up the whole cyberspace
Time renders him immortal, when space
Expands her indefinitely. Entangled, they form
The coordinate, where history sucks all black holes
· · ·
Self-Semantics: a Bilinguacultural Poem
1/ I vs 我: Denotations
The first person singular pronoun, or this very
Writing subject in English is I , an only-letter
Word, standing straight like a pole, always
Capitalized, but in Chinese, it is written with
Lucky seven strokes as 我 , with at least 108
Variations, all of which can be the object case
At the same time.
Originally, it’s formed from
The character 找, meaning ‘pursuing’, with one
Stroke added on the top, which may well stand for
Anything you would like to have, such as money
Power, fame, sex, food, or nothing if you prove
Yourself to be a Buddhist practitioner inside out
2/ Human & 人: Connotations
Since I am a direct descendant of Homo Erectus, let me
Stand straight as a human/人, rather than kneel down
When two humans walk side by side, why to coerce one
Into obeying the other like a slave fated to follow/从?
Since three humans can live together, do we really need
A leader or ruler on top of us all as a group/众?
Given all the freedom I was born with, why
Just why cage me within walls like a prisoner/囚？
—Submitted on 05/08/2021
Yuan Changming edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver. Credits include Pushcart nominations and publications in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry and Best New Poems Online, among others. Recently Yuan served on the Jury for Canada’s 44th National Magazine Awards (poetry category).
SUBMIT to A River Sings via our SUBMITTABLE site.
Editor’s Note: The series title A River Sings is borrowed from “On the Pulse of Morning,” the poem read by Maya Angelou at the inauguration of Bill Clinton in 1993.
