Changming Yuan

 Changming Yuan grew up in a remote Chinese village and published several books before immigrating to Canada. 
With a PhD in English, Yuan currently works in Vancouver and has had over100 poems appearing online or in the literary press, which includes dANDelion (Canada), 
Interpoetry, Kritya (India), the London Magazine, Pennine Ink, Porcupine (US), Private (Italy), Pulsar, Stylus Poetry Journal (Australia) 

 

Dear Michael

beyond this bold and cold beach
i desire to design a sunshine island
where we will no longer be sandwiched
by yesterday’s fashionable dream
and tomorrow’s virtual reality 
rather, we can walk freely around
with all our leisure and pleasure
gathering our fragmented childhoods
raising a dozen geese or ducklings
growing several rows of cabbage
and watching the little curious cloud
drifting close to the distant borderline
between the sea and sky both bluish



Directory of Directions

North: 	after the storm
	all dust hung up
	in the crowded air
	with his human face
	frozen into a dot of dust
	and a rising speckle of dust
	melted into his face
	to avoid this cold climate
	of his antarctic dream
	he relocated his naked soul
	at the dawn of summer

South:	like a raindrop
	on a small lotus leaf
	unable to find the spot
	to settle itself down
	in an early autumn shower
	my little canoe drifts around 
	near the horizon
	beyond the bare bay

Center:	deep from the thick forest
	a bird’s call echoes
	from ring to ring	
	within each tree
	hardly perceivable
	before it suddenly
	dies off into the closet
	of a noisy human mind

West:	not unlike a giddy goat
	wandering among the ruins
	of a long lost civilization
	you keep searching
	in the central park
	a way out of the tall weeds
	as nature makes new york
	into a mummy blue

East:	in her beehive-like room
	so small that a yawning stretch
	would readily awaken
	the whole apartment building 
	she draws a picture on the wall
	of a tremendous tree
	that keeps growing
	until it shoots up
	from the cemented roof