Mindscaping
Changming Yuan
Table of Contents
1. Directory of Directions
2. My Crow
3. South China
Cicada
4. Bow and Arrow
5. Fossil Fish
6. My Crow, My Other
Life
7. Name Changing
8. Dancing with
Crane
9. Sowing after
‘Digging’
10. Ischemia
11. Me and Them
12. Single Last Sale
13. Day & Night
14. Uncertainty
15. Light vs Shadow
16. Butterfly Being:
Zhuangzi Revisited
17. Replacing
18. White Calls
19. The Worn Worm
20. Chronometry
21. Wintry Vision
22. The Crow and the
Butterfly
23. Chameleon
24. The Unseen
25. Secret Spirit
26. If U Can’t See
Me, I Can’t See U
27. Drawing the
Dragon
28. The Mouse, A
Mouse
29. Like Birds, Like
Humans
30. Within This Open
Bottle
Directory of Directions: A Module Poem
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
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
My Crow
As an ancient Chinese saying goes
Crows everywhere are equally black
But this one in the backyard of my heart
Is as white as a summer cloud
I have fed him with fog and frost
Until his feathers, his flesh
His calls and even his spirit
All turned into white like winter washed
My crow’s wings will never melt
Even when flying close to the sun
South China Cicada
no human ear has ever heard
of you
cloistering yourself deep in the soil
silently sucking
all sounds from roots
for more than thirteen years in a row
until high up on a summer painted twig
you slough off your earthly
self
pouring all your being in a single song
before the sun sets
for the yellow leaf
Bow and Arrow
For a whole decade of
Delays and detours
You have failed after all
To find the golden bow
Yet you still hold this arrow
Close to your heart
Ready to draw it
As straight as a day dream
At the setting summer sun
Fossil Fish
not every fish can
transform into a fossil
not every fossil
can be found fulfilled
yet unfortunately favored
by the formidable fate
i am a fossil
that used to be a fish
to avoid being drowned
in my own blue dreams
i swam, swum, and swimming
with the weeping
wind
against the sweeping waves
until at a hot moment of spot
i became fossilized
my skeleton is my story
simple
My Crow, My Other Life
Every morning, even before I open
My eyes, the little doors of the cage
My crow cannot wait to flutter out
Into the light-washed heavens
Striking its transparent wings into beating
Every night, even after I put
The cage back inside my cozy house
The bird still glides close to the moon
With its wings feathered with spirits
Forgetting to return home
Sometimes I wonder why
Day after day, night after night
It refuses to settle softly in its cage
Like a domesticated parrot
Were I it, would I?
Or you, once the cage broken
Would the bird return
Coo itself into sleep, dreaming
Of celestial freedom?
Name Changing
Confucius once said
If the name is not right
Language will carry no might
So my father created my name
By rearranging the sun and moon
Vertically and horizontally
To equip it with all
The forces of yin and yang
Dispersed in the universe
Since I became subject
To a totally different grammar
All people have complained
Or made fun of my name
So harsh and awkward
They conspire to seduce me
To adopt a familiar one
Like Michael in the powerful speech
But to retain the subtle balances
In the wild wild world I wander
To hold my father’s sunbeam
With my mother’s moonlight
I fiercely refuse to change it
Even though I often feel lost
When the sounds I hear
Do not sound like my name at all
Dancing with Crane
I show her how to move her steps
But she’s much too timid
Worse still, she cannot coordinate with my movements
And
Although she dances with me, to an unheard melody
It’s her own music she’s dancing to
She likes the way I hold her
And
Even lets me kiss her shoulder from time to time
so richly white and velvety
But she always keeps me at bill’s length
Each time I come closer
She backs off with a glaring scream
What have I done so wrong?
What is in her mind?
Jumping off the stage
She shows her best, which is a scarlet crest
Like plum petals blown onto the wall of west
I beg her to return
And
So she did, but only to depart from me again
Outside the spotlight
She begins to beat her wide wings against my blue wishes
Her eyes sparkling, as if saying to me
I have my neck and legs
Both too thin and too long
to be your partner here
In this cage-like hall
And
Worse still, she’s much too timid
Sowing After “Digging”
Above an empty sheet of
paper
With lines like the thin ridges
In an open fallow
field
My snug pen squats
As if waiting in ambush
Below my window, my father’s shaking shadow
Is shrinking slowly but surely
Into a focus
constantly adjusted
By the noon sun of spring
As he scatters some strange
seeds
Over the soil like salted brown rice
He has been preparing since
last winter
By god, the old man enjoys
sowing
Even more than
his old man
My grandfather died at the
age of 29
In a hilly village in central china
He had cast every drop of
his soiled sweat
Onto a field not belonging to himself
It is said that he reaped
little in autumn
Nor did he really care about
reaping
Like a bridegroom planting
his plump sperm deep
In his bride’s virgin field on
a mid-summer night
I am now sowing, with my pen
Ischemia
In my line of people, especially on my father’s side
There never seems to have been ample blood
Running within the arteries behind our Chinese chests
No matter how warm-hearted we actually are
As in the case of my father, who used to
Accuse me of being an ill-hearted teenager
My heart muscle is imbalanced
As one side is less infused with blood
Than the other, thus causing palpitation
Short breath, and a strong sense of
Tightness, heaviness or tiredness about life
To diagnose my cardiovascular
defection
Neither an echo nor a stress test is needed
For I am keenly aware of my own doomed
Arteries that have been clotted
With too many syllables
Voiced or voiceless
And to make all these sounds flow out of my heart
Is already stressful enough
Nevertheless, I will keep pumping out these words
All so blood-soaked
Me & Them
First, they looked but without seeing
So, I began to yell in a yellow voice
Then, they listened but without hearing
So, I cooked according to a Chinese recipe
Still, they smelt but without tasting
So, I melt myself into spring water
Finally, they touched but without feeling
So, I began to tattoo words on my own heart
Single Last Sale
You’ve long since sold out
Both your sweat and blood
Now you try to sell your heart
Though nobody wants it
Some say the blood is not red enough
Others find the chambers too narrow
Still others think the coronary arteries
Stained with too many feelings
You peddle around, chanting aloud
From street to street
With your heart still fresh
Beating like a frog in your hands
You hope to sell it for a glass of water
Just to cool down your burning voice
So you do not have to sell your soul
Like all other hawkers in the market
Well satiated, but hardly heart-felt
Day & Night
The day has no ears
The heart but a myriad
The noises glare
Where life’s grievance begins
The night has no eyes
The mind but a myriad
The shadows collide
When your spirit bites at the light
Uncertainty
Just as the shadow beyond the light
Is fictional, and fictional is
The word on the paper or screen
So is this hand also fictional
That writes from the heart of the night?
All the feelings swarmed together
What I meditated, flows
I wonder if this life of mine
Is posthumous before the birth
Of a refracted metaphor?
Light vs Shadow
Was it the shadow?
Was it the shadow beyond?
Was it the shadow beyond the shadow?
Still fell the thick night,
When the heart blocked the light.
Yes, it is light!
It is light within!
It is light within light!
Loud sweeps the morning glow,
Where the mind has no shadow.
Butterfly Being: Zhuangzi Revisited
Neither a human
Dreaming of being a butterfly
Nor a butterfly
Dreaming of being a human
But simply a moth egg
Attached firmly
To a yellowish leave
Within the human mind
Or perhaps the other way around
Am I?
Running short of bulbs
I planted some root words instead
Along the fence
In the backyard of my mind
All winter
They seemed dreaming under the frozen soil
When the last dews fly away
You will see certain three-colored tulips
Blooming aloud
Towards the early summer sun
White Calls
How many times
Have you lain in thick darkness
Imagining a white crow
That you wish to see
Or rather to be
Not until the other morning
Did you hear a wild bird crying
Like a persistent knock
At the door of your heart
Beyond your curtained window
Beyond your curtained dream
It was a crow hammering all its white yaws
Right into your soul
Resonating with your truer selfhood
The Worn Worm
This is a transparent creature
Gnawing at the tiny roots
Of my withering senses
Before it becomes a chrysalis
Buried deep in my heart’s soil
Then it tries to climb out
Sucking all the fresh dews
Held long in my staring eyes
Before it begins to beat
Its blue wings against the
frog
Then it will fly away
On a cloudless day
Chronometry
I kissed your morning
With mine, and held
Your night closely with mine too
Between your spring and autumn
I lay my summer
Deep in winter
From your January through February
To your March, I wrap your April and May
With my June and July
Within your August
I use my September or October
To caress both your November and December
And right from your moment
I suck my whole year
Wintry Vision
Two little crows
Popping up
From nowhere
Try to
Establish themselves:
Two truths
On the skeletal tree top
Yawing fiercely
Towards the sky, the wind, the buildings
The fields and the entire afternoon
All so fluffy white
In jade-toned snow
The Crow and the Butterfly
you like the crows in your backyard
other birds are much less plain
but they fly too high
or too far for your heart
stranded here
you envy the butterfly in your frontyard
The most beautiful
thought also most lonely
As the spring sets
under her floral wings
Chameleon
-- when it looks in a mirror, what color does it have?
constantly
changing your skin color
with light
temperature
or emotion
they know it for sure
but isn’t it
their eyes
changing
with their minds
their hearts
their tongues
longer even than yours
we are actually colorless
aren’t we?
The Unseen
Most ignore such things
As dirt, rock or trees
That make up the collective pronoun
The pronoun is all
Before you open your eyes
All is there
And there you may perceive
Your whole world in them
Out of their shapes
Their colors, their textures
Their statues
You construct an open garden
To concentrate upon
That patch of nature
Never confined to the human mind
Secret Spirit
for years I sought light in darkness
with my eyes open wide as my mouth
I called, I sang, I prayed, I pleaded
for rays that might come down from above
now I seek darkness in light instead
with my ears closed tight as my eyes
yet I cannot find a shred of my soul's
with my eyes open wide as my mouth
I called, I sang, I prayed, I pleaded
for rays that might come down from above
now I seek darkness in light instead
with my ears closed tight as my eyes
yet I cannot find a shred of my soul's
shadow, even in a midnight dream
If U Can’t See Me, I Can’t See U
(sign at the back
of a truck)
Outside the picture, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you
Under a pile of words, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you
Behind a big truck, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you
That is, since I drive in front of you
If you want to pass but can’t see me in
My driver’s seat, or in my front rear mirror, you are
In my blind spot, so don’t follow me too closely, don’t
Try to pass me, but stay calm behind my shadow
Otherwise you would kiss my big ass in a bloody way
And so, when you communicate
Wait and make sure you see the right person first –
That’s for your own safety, pal
When you are cursing, singing, dancing, playing or fighting
It’s best to have the real person in view:
If she can’t kiss you, you can’t kiss her
If you can’t put up with me, I can’t put up with you
If fame can’t grow out of you, you can’t grow out of fame
If money can’t find you, you can’t find money
If the politician can’t trust you really, you really can’t trust the
politician
Look, what I point out is, if you can’t see me, I can’t see you
Whether it is in a book, at a cemetery, on a plane, or behind a truck
Drive safe, you asshole.
Drawing the Dragon
There was a contest
Once
For the most faithful representation
Of loong
(Or the Chinese dragon)
In England
An inflated Satan
Or was it Sua proper
Came to squat among
The letters
Then stroke by stroke, again
It rose right
Upon
Each slate of white
Mind
The Mouse, A Mouse
if the little mouse became
as boundless as the sky as it wishes
the sky would become
as free as a cloud
the cloud
as powerful as a wind
and if the wind became
as unshakable as a wall
the wall would become
as penetrating as a mouse
and the little mouse
a mouse
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