Two Poems by Changming Yuan

Natural Confrontations

 

1/ Corn

With a small body

Of teeth, you have bitten off

Every golden minute

From the warm day

Hoping to collect and store

All the sunlight

Of the passing season 

 

2/ Cloud

With a body so light

Soft, short, never

Even having a fixed shape

You resist the strongest summer sun

Trying to shield all its rays

Like arrows

Shot down

Towards the human world

3/ Octopus

To escape

From your predator

You eject a wet night

Into the seawater

As if to dye the whole ocean

Into darkness 

Arboreal Aesthetics

1/ Every tree is unique not only in shape but also in spirit.

2/ No tree tries to appear different, but it naturally grows to be so.

3/ Trees are much more beautiful than humans, in general as well as in particular.

4/ Each tree leaf facing towards the sun is clearer, sleeker and brighter.

5/ All leaves are strictly symmetrical, but no two twigs or trunks are exactly identical.

6/ A crow or human may not be distinguished from its like, but a tree always can.

7/ Young or old, plump or skinny, living or dead, each tree is handsome its own way.

8/ Never tired of standing, trees have feelings, impulses, attitudes, thoughts and dialects.

9/ Every tree ring keeps a growing secret at heart.

10/ Trees may look more graceful as they dance in the wind, but they actually prefer rain.

11/ Whoever appreciates the beauty of a tree is rich, wise and healthy.

12/ A tree always keeps its head, heart and hands wildly open.

13/ The beauty of a twig, a trunk, or the whole tree is deeper than its heart.

14/ Every tree is a great artwork of line, shape and color.

15/ Two trees may grow together, but they never lose their independent individuality.

16/ Trees may bend or break in a storm, but they never budge from their position in life.

17/ Obscure or outstanding, no tree pays serious attention to the comments of the wind.

Changming Yuan, 4-time Pushcart nominee and author of Chansons of a Chinaman, grew up in rural China, holds a PhD in English, and currently works as a private tutor in Vancouver; his poetry has appeared in nearly 510 literary publications across 20 countries, including Asia Literary Review, Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, London Magazine, Paris/Atlantic and SAND.