YUAN CHANGMING - POEMS

Yuan Changming, 9-time Pushcart nominee and author of 7 chapbooks (including Wordscaping [2016]), grew up in rural China and published monographs on translation before immigrating to Canada. With a PhD in English from the U of Saskatchewan, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver, and has poetry appearing in Best Canadian Poetry (2009,12,14), BestNewPoemsOnline, Poetry in Voice,  Threepenny Review and 1179 others across 38 countries.
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​          Cheese, Vancouver in April
 
Don’t even think of
Trying to pretend, but
Just show your most natural
Charm and grace; stand straight
Amidst the greening maple trees
Hold all the blooming cherry flowers
Closer to your heart; face towards
The bluest sky above the pacific
Move a bit more forward
Before the grouse mountain
Shake off the rain drops of last long winter
On your hair, and now
 
Say cheese, you vancouver in april 

            On the Freeway
 
Driving through a forest
I saw a deer
Standing alone still
 
Like what I wish to watch:
Every human is so busy
Passing by
 

​               I Think; Therefore, I Am
 
But of course being what I am
Does not always require thinking
 
Being what I am is actually sufficient
 
Or requires nothing but eating, drinking
Fucking, farting, pissing, pooing and sleeping
 
Often, being what I am doesn’t even require
Feeling, besides making money by selling
 
All that I have and/or I am. Indeed
 
Being what I am requires neither thinking
Nor feeling, now except perhaps writing
 
I write; therefore, I am
Though I am not what I think

             
​                 Tree Scars
 
With your fingers, hands
And even arms cut off
 
You have scars all over
Your body, which first
 
You used to protest against all human pain
And injury in deafening silence, then
 
Your mouths became eyes staring still
At each evil knife, each inhuman act
 
Now you are looking forward, and beyond
Without a wink, without a tear drop

​                      Slowly
 
Let us take all the long time we need
To wake up from our overdue dreams
Get out of the bed, and stretch our
Limbs as far as possible for a new morning
 
Let us take all the long time we need
To listen to the first song of the birds
Watch the rise of this summer sun, feel
The breeze combing each tree with tenderness
 
Let us take all the long time we need
To enjoy being together with our beloved
Exchange a smile so that they can stay with
Us just a few seconds or even minutes longer
 
Yes, let’s take all the long time we need
To drink this tea, to chat about this weather
To look back at the road we have travelled along
To think, to cry, and to die in lingering twilight

​                     Crows
 
You’re neither the mystic
Prophet
Nor the common
Fortune teller
As you are believed to be
In the east or the west
 
Rather, you are the soul of a fellow
Human, perching on the treetop
Speechless, as if meditating over
Life, as if recalling your prayers