Landscaping

Changming Yuan

Seasonscape

Spring: 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

Summer: 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

Autumn: 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

Winter: 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

Beyond the Blue

there is no borderline

between sea and sky

waves are pushing their colors

up towards the air, bloating

their calls and songs to bold

changing shapes

it is a world within nature

presenting itself, or what

cannot be represented elsewhere

separated from the mind

the frame always trying to capture

a few fish swimming in the waters

Sun Setting above the Sea

Like an all-faced fisherman

Too excited about a long day’s catch

The sun eagerly drags its net of light

Bigger than the universe itself

Onto the thickening skyline

Leaving behind nothing glittering with fish scales

In the shadow of night

Ritual

A seagull glides

Its motionless

Graceful glide

Above a million freshly foamed waves

From this realm

You hear the gull

As all birds are

Little is definitely impossible

Sea View

However winds blow

All waves keep pushing forward

Towards the shore

Only the light rays at sunset

Retreating to the ocean’s heart

Like a flock of pigeons

Returning to their cage

Nightscape

You saw the clouds near the skyline
Drifting around in an earthly dance
You hear the evening clearing its throat
As if to address a huge crowd

Close to your dream explodes around
The heavy metal music of the inner city
When high above the streets
The moon flees like a startled seagull

Spring Scenery

As the morning fog

Stalks away on its fluffy feet

All boughs

Unanimously agree

To take action

By bursting themselves

With dripping green buds

Little dimples

In myriads

Across the widely smiling face

Of spring

Tree and Flower

tender and charming

peach blossoms fallen

into a transparent dream

on the unmowed lawn

whose snoring disturbs

the wakening leaves

i would like to give them

a melodious kiss

but I cannot—

i am the peach tree

still still

Crows in the Sunlight

Soon after their dreamless roosting

The crows on the boughs begin to look up

Some ready to fly, some to land

Beyond the darkest moments of last night

Disturbed by their calls, a solitary squirrel

Climbing down the tree, crossing the fence

To a pasture no greener than the leaves

But there is certainly more sunshine

More photosynthesizing, under the golden film

As I walk past, neither the crows

Nor the squirrel bothers to notice my presence

Why should they be startled away? It is me

Trespassing a new territory between day and night

Where the crows hide their night-dyed feathers

Mushroom

With neither dignity

Of a canopy

Nor myth

Of an aureole

Your cap is simply too small

Your stem too short

Your geared-bones too tender

Yet your fleshy body has inspired

Myriads of umbrellas

To shield gods and humans alike

Against rain or heat

Against history

Summer Scenery

The galley of an unknown author’s work

In a fully justified format:

Every stark hill italicized

Every glaring lake capitalized

With no single tree misspelled

Or single flower misplaced

Again and yet again, the sun has

Proofread the text

With all its attention

And

Found everything just ready to go

At Sunrise in Summer

You leap from the valley

Like an infant newly delivered

Your umbilical cord just cut off

From mother universe

To establish your own

Circulation of bloody light

Why not get up and open

Every skylight on the roof

Turning on the sun’s big tap

To take a morning shower

And cleanse all the darkness

Accumulated on our skins

tattooed by the night?

Corn

A whole body of teeth

Nothing but teeth

To chew the passing summer

We bite off from you

All the pearl-like memories

Tinged with sunlight

A hard but juicy kiss

Sunflower

To demonstrate their heliotropism

They all keep saluting

To the summer sun, constantly moving

But at this private spot

You alone refuse to flatter light during the day

Bow towards the east at night

Even take a look beyond the foggy fields

Close to the fence between day and night

You hold your head high, trying

To mould every little conception

Into a silver bullet aimed at Venus

Autumn Scenery

between two sharp chest ribs

of an isolated birch skeleton

dusk-dyed and wind-carved

hung still on an invisible wall

comes to perch an ageing crow

whose bold beak holds a cold

and pale prophesy old

with all withered leaves palette-cut

blowing towards gates and doors

like the fliers sent randomly

from an alien chain store

Stream Moonset in Autumn

Close your eyes

Stay still

And you can feel

The moon’s silver needles

Softly pointed

Penetrating tranquility

Into your head, hand and heart

Like Chinese acupuncture

Flying balmy filaments

At you and me alike

Although ten thousand miles apart

Open your eyes

The light is streamwater

Spattering down from heaven

Upon your shaded shoulders

Whirling up and splashing about

Into stars, if you can

Catch just one droplet

Hurling it into the backyard

Out of the broken window

Of your fenced mind

The symphony of night

Tender

Pumpkins

Arhats
squatting around in a foggy field

each flushed with protests
against frost coming all too soon

Buddha puts you there
to guard an entire season
but we will relocate you
to guard our rented houses

the last of a fast-fading landscape
the last to ripen

Dandelion

As the wind rises

Again

We begin to wander

Once more

With all our white

And fluffy wishes

Across an unwelcoming land

With no definite direction

No hope of settling down

Among inhabitants of Hollow Hills

Except the willful wind

Until we collapse

Into soundless seeds

When suddenly caught

By a bone of grass

In the Twilight

As the night began to dye the whole day

With its long and dark shadows

The man and his dog bowed over the huge tub

Of an autumn evening

Their faces becoming greyer

Like two sparrows pecking with leisure

At the few dregs of sunlight

Left over on the lawn

All worn out

Sorghum

Swarms of baby bees

Attracted to the head of every sugar cane

All busy sucking the sweet from mother earth

Or collecting sunlight for a rainy day

Far beyond the fields of late summer

They stand tall above evening arrays

As if to salute the new crescent moon

Like red reeds, with red seeds

Poppies

Each pair of round lips

Cut right in the middle

Bleeding so boldly

In a foggy fields

Nobody to kiss

Nobody to talk with

All like blood-skirted pasts

Painted thickly close to the heart

Winter Scenery: The Black Bird

so little triggers
off

a black bird
the nexus of antithesis
foiled with snow
light

to fly into the vast history of
gray

Winter Sleep

between padded sheets

i envelope both

my senses and soul

and stamp my naked body

with a gear-edged dream

put into the big mailbox of night

and send my suppressed self

far away from home

to a strange place

unregistered

Wintry Willow

What a strangely familiar blizzard

That has blown your bare body

To the far end of the prairie

Standing stiff at the still cliff

You listen to the muted monologue of the valley

With all your hardened heart

Then and there, in the shape of the wind

You start to shake off your silver branches

Like a huge skeletal seagull beating its wings wildly

Eager to flap into the northern lights

Ode to Huyang Tree

in the most remote corner

of the wild wild west of china

along the sharpened edges

of the great gobi

beyond the surging waves

hostile to humans and animals alike

where even the dry wind is choked

with sand dying of thirst

you are the only life form

with leaves green and shady

standing firmly alone

with no dignity

but full of pride

you are little known to foreign visitors

who find it hard to pronounce your true name

nor do you even have a definition

in the dictionary of colonists

yet among the native uighurs

you are worshipped with wonder

as a living legend:

you do not die

until after one thousand years

you do not fall

one thousand years after your death

and you do not decay

one thousand years

long after you finally fall

At Zhangjiajie, A UNESCO Designated Nature Park

Slim, tall and sedate
In the fluffiest garments
Of no human design
Each hill stands like a female model
Trying to display her charm and dignity
As if in a grand fashion show or
Like a fairy maiden at a casual party
Lost in a game unknown to passers-by

Amidst the morning mists
Flirtatious expressions of summer hills
I indulge myself in fits of a lover’s impulses
To give every protruding rock a dry kiss
And every slender tree a huge hug

I cannot help feeling deeply embarrassed
When my allen asks: who are they, dad?

Confucian Gentility: Floral Haiku

Orchid: Deep in the valley

Alone on an obscure spot

You bloom none the less

Lotus: From foul decayed silt

You shoot clean against the sun

Never pollutable

Mum: Hanging on and on

Even when wishes wither

You keep flowering

Plum: Your brave bold blood dropped

As though to melt all world’s snow

Before spring gathers

Sightseeing at Harrison Lake

under a wishful willow

on the bench's bare back

are awkwardly carved

many names, initials, heartshapes

some densely isolated

others thinly connected

with plus or equal signs

making a whole new monument

a tortured totem of tourism

unoccupied, probably reserved

there's no sudden heat of hope

or quick burial of burned burins

yet like a huge fish fossilized

sitting still in open solitude

towards the hills drifting beyond

as if to wait at the waterfront

for the long lost syllables

stranded below the setting sun

Animal Virtue

in the big mouth

of an african alligator

open wide as broad daylight

a little nameless bird

is pecking joyfully

with leisure and pleasure

at his tooth slit

as if flirting with her bulky lover

trying to protect her

against the sun

burning flesh and earth

around the old

weak, sick and disabled

as well as innocent colts

the zebras get ready to build

a circle of wall

with their naked bodies

each time a lion looms

and waits for his first chance

to prey on one of the unlucky

alone and quietly

the doomed elephant

the once strongest of the rain forest

retreats deeper and deeper

into the limberlost of distances

struggling to die somewhere

in an unknown corner

far beyond the tusking territory

of his silent survivors

to keep their hope alive

The Cycle of A Life

The Egg: roundish, yellowish

Like a morning dewdrop

Hanging on the east side of

An unknown leaf, ready

To be hatched out

By the warm sunlight

Of late spring

The Larva: with stripes and patches

So fashionable as a fancy garment

You keep wriggling, wriggling

Towards the heat of south

As if to display your pride

Over your colored being

The Pupa: Unlike a south China cicada

Trying to slough off its old self

For a different song of the west wind

You wrap up your outer life

With your innermost thoughts

About reaping sorghum

In the far fields of autumn

The Imago: As colored snowflakes

Beat their wings

Against northern dreams

You forget whether you

Are the butterfly, or the

Butterfly is you among

White wintry wishes

The Season

Stalking

First on clumsy panda feet

It squats, eye-sweeping

Over trees and grasses

On silent haunches

And then, begins to loll and wallow around

Sea Snapshots: Four Haiku

1/ however winds blow
all waves keep pushing forward
to the shore only

2/ light rays at sunset
Retreat to the ocean's heart
together with gulls

3/ a daring spirit
trying to stir the whole sea
with its tiny beak

4/ in grace and leisure
you dance with a raging storm
to the blue descant

Sounds of the Ocean

Whining, whistling, whispering

Singing, murmuring, sighing

With myriads of tossing tongues

You just follow the earth’s rhythms

If not your own instincts

If not the tunes of the winds

Articulating yourself in an unfailing voice

You do not care if you have any audience

To begin (or end) with

Indeed, there is never a need for understanding

From either humans standing afar on the shore

Or fishes swimming close to your heart

Dialectic Diary (1)

The waters always look murky

To those standing on the shore

Although they are truly transparent

Beneath a flying seagull

Dialectic Diary (2)

Never has the light been so bright

It can melt everything

Even crow feathers, even the night

That will come to land

Sweeping all their way to the heart

I dislike the mountain during the day

Not because it blocks the view

Or spreads shadows, dark and thick

To the closest trees, but it is the soft gaze

Of a lonely walker that will

Focus on their dancing reflections

In the lake. You claim the light

Can melt everything, even a soul

Yet not the shadows, not the dreams

Not such shaded thoughts

At the Bubbling Beach

along the shoreline

wriggling like a loose hula

a solitary seagull

standing still

at the sandy tip

as if totally lost

in its foamy contemplation

over the distant horizon

bending like a boundless bow

widely drawn

the vast watery blue eye

of this universe

lying on its back

deep in his pupil

is an invisible arrow

ready to shoot

at the way the sea

seems to see

Above the Water

the goose has been floating

so long in the lake

its body above the water

becomes a picture, the rest

a rotten stick

the goose above the water

is more graceful than a swan

the goose under the water

is fossilized

in the heart of that lake

there is nothing

but a picture

of a goose-like figure

ever so bold and vivid

Spring Sunlight

On the lawns covered with chilly dreams

Like a huge heavenly herbivore creature

It wanders in ever fresh and warm leisure

With its transparent tongue reaching far out

As it licks at the snow left under the tree shade

From under the thick quilt of last winter

Hills wake, and all buildings loom up

Like its bulky body showing its strong figure

While the wind collides with the clouds

As if it were shaking down its fur like feathers

In Stanley Park

tender, timid tulips

drinking the steamy sea smell so loud

even the haughty and moody hemlock firs

becoming muted, lost in their red

brownish memories of the native Rockies

On Osler Street, Vancouver West

somewhere down my neighborhood

as if the sun and moon were melting

all the cherry twigs tinged with spring

like morning glows fallen in the wood

beside the freshly mown lawns I jog

both my steps and breaths in keeping

with every little bare cluster humming

such a sweet tune in the silvery fog

is my residence here but a day dream

or is the day dream my residence here?

yuanspoetry©

Thursday, 13 February 2014

[archived]: nature poems-1 by Changming Yuan ©

Landscaping

Nightscape

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