Getting Along: A Bilinguacultural Poem

By Yuan Changming

In Chinese, 朋友，恋人，& 爱人 are all
12-stroked characters, just as their counter-
Parts friend, couple & spouse are 6-lettered
Words in the imperial vocabulary of English
 
Though they are all underlined with human
 
Love and loyalty, the former entails twice
As much input or effort of the heart
As the latter to maintain a disparately
Similar humane relationship as a speech act

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That Which Glitters

By Yuan Changming

Is not just gold, but also the teeth chewing
The bitterness of life at twilight; the bones
 
Excavated from a lost civilisation; the roof
Tiles glazed with the rain of last night; &
 
The rock standing firm in the gurgling stream;
The broken mirror in the debris of history; &
 
The disk hung like a scarecrow in the garden;
The wings of a raven flying in the storm; &
 
The coal close to a furnace; the forehead
Of my late father in my dream; as well
 
As the scales of a fish jumping out of water
Against the starlight; the glacier protruding
 
From an unknown peak in the Rocky Mountains;
Or, the eye looking beyond the darkness of tonight  

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Who I Am: A Philosophical Poem

By Yuan Changming

Looking up
To the darkish infinity of
Outer space, I see
How a star has been growing
Only to die in holographic parallel
With a cell within my body
 
& come to know my protobeing
& the cosmos as one
& the same: just as I is
 
The cosmos, so
The cosmos am I 

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Yuan Changming grew up in an isolated village, started to learn the English alphabet at age nineteen and published monographs on translation before leaving China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Changming currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver. Credits include eleven Pushcart nominations, nine chapbooks & awards, and publications in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17) and BestNewPoemsOnline, among 1789 others across 46 countries.