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?
Appointment
come, sunlight
let us sit tight
side by side
let us have
a chat or tete-a-tete
beside silences sliced
you know quite a few
idiomatic phrases
of my night-coded dialect
and i understand some
basic syntax
of your seven coloured
speech
we do not have
a common language
we do not need
a common language
on a quiet corner
of private afternoon
we can set up a dialogue
without the god
as our interpreter
Hasty Come, Hasty Go
in haste
you came
on one of those
dull and desperate days
like a summer shower
catching me in the open
without an umbrella:
my heart swept afar
my soul rain-drenched
and my bored body
left standing
alone
among isolating pools
as you leave
in a hurry too
Rain Clouds
Close to the bold borderline
Between the sky and the sea
You rise, together with the sun
Below giggling morning glows
Above sour songs, loud lights
Hot hopes in the humanscape
You keep drifting around, slowly
Summoning each salty heart
Beyond the shadow of dream
Beyond the dream of summer
You grow ripe and ready to fall
To myriads of lucent oval tunes
Mid-Autumn Moon
a rounded rainbow trout
shining bright and lively
until it is cast afar
onto the bank of my dream
Withered Twig
definitely invisible
to the human eye
looking casually afar
hardly noticeable
even by my neighbour
at a close range
the whole cypress tree
filled with green spirits
except me, the only badge
faded, getting rusty
yet refusing to fall
onto the grassy ground
maybe it is a worm
that has burrowed
into my flat body
and bite by bite
gnawing at my heart
i am dying, and
dead will i be
please do not say
i am a martyr
for i hate
my embarrassing fate
but just break me off
and see my stained soul
a hidden birthmark
rather than
an unfading scar
of my immortal mother
The Revelations of Lichens
On barren rocks
In sun-baked desert soils
At the depth of Antarctic
Anywhere but a civilized centre
Of population and pollution
These pioneer plants grow robust
In the most unassuming manner
Like a tide of faded gossamer
Conquering and colonizing
All earthly surfaces
While living peacefully
In a loving relationship
Between fungi and algae
Never discernable
To the naked human eye
Those Gliding Geese
Little clouds of fossilized sunshine
Now flying mute
And leaving behind their shadows
All the songs of the morning
Until they are shot down
Like flute dots
The last calls they make
Their only songs
Autumn Rain
The drizzle has finally stopped
All the wet has swarmed into raindrops
And fallen flat on the ground
Except this one that continues traveling along
Lingering
Soon it will slip out the twig’s desperate hold
Like a gold coin between a dying miser’s fingers
The last leaf of a naked tree
The last dew of a forgotten season
Orange
The swirling light of a setting sun
Turns every pip of summer
Into a halfmoon-shaped dreamer
Dreaming
About a full and golden wheel
Keep running towards another season
Wrapped within the rind are ten fleshy carpels
Ten thousand juicy associations
Still Chrysanthemum
You are always amazed
Why chrysanthemums bloom
Without feeling
At their spots of growth
While they are identified by color
White, yellow, pink, red, orange, blue, purple
Tender-textured
Petals powdered
With the coolest rays
Of the mid-autumn moon
You are stricken by their very graciousness
Each hiding behind its jade-veined fingers
Yet each refusing to budge against the chiseling frost
Still and proud
Bamboo
With your hair-like roots
Holding the earth so tightly
You stand straight
Even during a summer storm
Thin as your body
You keep an open mind
For all secrets of growth
Between your heart-ringed joints
Despite your slim leaves
You are full of spirits
Ever so clean
Ever so green
Wild Wild West Wind
you deep breath
of last spring
long held in summer
now letting out against light
your most hidden fears
of fall
as if to raise
a silent name call
or blowing away
all the withered words
(including mine)
from every tree
non-evergreen
to a distant wasteland
frozen forever
with winter together
Snow White
So white
Swirlingly and spirallingly white
Billions of butterflies
Beating their wings white
The sky
The land
The wind so high
Blowing the whole hard afternoon
Into scraps of confetti white
So softly and tenderly white
Even the spirits of night
The dark
The darker
The darkest corners of human minds
All become so deafening white
Except a crow in flight beyond this worldly sight
Elegy of Snow
once upon a time
christmas used to be all in white
although the winter was colder
and more or less longer
snow has long disappeared from here
since it melted into seawater
of tears and sweat
both so thickly salty
instead of piling chubby snowmen
and playing snow fights with our children
now we recall summer clouds, reed flowers
bursting cotton or rolling dandelions
they are no less fluffy or white than the snow
but in here we have white christmas no more
Pine Tree
Sitting on a boulder
Like Thousand-Hand Thousand-Eye Guanyin
You reach out all your deeply tanned arms
Pointing all your evergreen fingers up to the sky
Not to take in moisture from the surrounding mists
But to give out the freshest air you could
With eyes held in as many hands
You are witnessing the sounds of the world
Still, in spirited stillness
The Last Snowflake of Last Winter
Fell as if a whole century ago
To the heart of all hardened shadows
But it has never melted there
With the least lukewarm dream
Even when summer is arriving
Is it simply because it is white as wish
Rather than red as blood
Or because its name is not writ in water?
Canadian Winter
unlike the proud Prometheus
you stole from an unknown paradise
the white seeds of pure peace
sowing them tender and graceful
with softly solid stillness
in a dry and dreaming land
are you blessings bountiful from high above
or just muted wishes deep in our hearts?
Horticulture
With its whim-bladed diaphanous scissors
The west wind arrives simply too early
Trimming the edges of late summer
Pruning the few overgrown branches
Of frenzy afternoons, like an artful hairstylist
Eager to enhance her patron’s charisma
Next year, when the season returns
It will grow greener, with stronger boughs
More tender buds, like the lilac tree
Trembling with muted laugher
In the front yard of my mind
Here at the Seashore
All roads and trails
Have come to a hasty end
All hills and mountains
Have sunk into the bottom
And all trees and flowers
Have retreated themselves
Except a solitary seagull
Soaring high above
His blue call resonates
With the foamy song of the
sea
At Yoho’s Natural Bridge
among the mighty massive roars
full of wild wonders and deep awe
i come to worship this
bridge-like rock
carved with icy chisels of
glacier water
powerfully pounding
constantly cutting
a masterpiece out of the primitive
with no sense of design or
purpose
nor intended expression of
any feelings
nor embodiment of scientific
principles
totally ignorant of my
humble presence
under my feet is a
wooden bridge
simple, but solid as a superb
set
of symmetries, a
perfect human artifact
where i stop and then step
down
to overhear God's
whispers
Confession of a Cat
like a pile of compressed fog
caught on a twig at the mountainwaist
the cat hunches on the sofa's shoulder
where i see the whole house of life
genetically domesticated behind the doors
that most hateful human invention
yes, i am a bimental being
as my feline friend has revealed
i can readily detect the moods
of my human family members
often switching my personality
with my drifting kittenhood
as i tease or avoid them behind doors
who know i enjoy solitary stalking
and respect my rented privacy
but none of them was born in the year of my day
since my ancestor was cheated shamefully
out of a ridiculous race in chinese zodiac
the inside doors are ajar or unlocked
but the one facing the free spirits of nature
is always tightly closed, separating me
from my other self born to prefer
to stroll in the wild than sit in the house
once i sneak out of the threshold
i will never give a backward glance
yet I will keep my grooming habit
by using my long tongue to clean the dirtiest
and most private parts of my authentic being
somewhere in the wildness
The Dove
never does the dove remember his ancestor
who once by chance brought
back a fresh twig
thus saving an aged man after a universal flood
nor is the dove aware he is the white flying creature
the subject painted with
piety and prayers
devoted to a great but difficult human cause
as we admire or worship his invented virtues
he is busy cooing or beaking on the ground
no larger or smaller than
another common pigeon
sometimes even like an
unknowing wanton
who cannot help fighting with his playmate
over a blue spot tinged with human blood
Song of Salmons
deep in ever deafening waters
of the pacific never really pacific
you speak a highly salty dialogue
too unique to be readily translatable
painted with shiny eloquence
your language has no tattooed taboos
under every spot of your silver skin
is hidden a richly pink secret
within your little body half of a meter
spurts out a strength of three thousand kilo
you keep swimming in bluish solitudes
against the waves of an entire ocean
your heroic journey back to your birth stream
is nothing less than a pilgrim to immortality
along your single long line writ in water
you have striven, for a tiny egg of after-life
Primavera
Now another ice age is coming
Everyone knows how and why
Snail and Grass
Snail: without this big mountain
on my humble back
i could also travel
with grace and glory
Grass: you manage to stand up
each time after you
are
trodden down under a
dirty
and heavy human foot
Winds
There are winds to lead and winds to avoid
There are winds to sweep like a million unseen brooms
Winds to break every head on the bare land
Winds to caress or flirt with the tenderest spring petals
Winds to uproot century old oak or willow trees
Winds like heavy sighs of history blowing out every light
Winds of leaves, flowers, rains, snows, sand and dust
Winds that whisper, winds that whistle like screaming monsters
Winds that you can never walk against, pushing buildings and cities
Winds that swirl around and make the whole world dizzy
Winds that drive waves upon beaches like stampeding horses
Winds that send roofs, beds and pigs up above dark clouds
There are winds that blow all golden sunshine into white winter
Winds that strike human hearts like bells ringing fiercely
Winds that never stop waving, wallowing and warring
Even if you long for just one damned moment of peace
At the Top of Grouse Mountain
Dark green waves dancing
Hippy-hoppy-happy hornpipes
Up and down the slopes
As the drift and the dream
The weave and the wave
The fume and foam
Of the sea of trees
Turn my mind into a
drifting buoy
Farther out, the great graceful breakers
Moved like kings into court
Trailing the peacock-
Patterned forest behind
them
At my feet the mists stroked the grasses
With soft little paws
Floating right amidst the green spirits
Can I see the true face of the closest tree?
On the Honghu Lake
Among dozens of colonies of lotus
The flowers grow in crowds of colors
White, pink, red, blue
or purple
Except all leaves green, as stems arise
Straightly from blackish
muddy lakebeds
As if to pave a path for a patrolling Buddha
The most versatile plant in my original country
Lotus is now seen in terms of seeds and roots only
Both sweet and crisp
to its finicky eaters
While the much lauded purity of its big flowers
Has become a forgotten
foreign cliché
Under a cluster of tall and broad leaves
The boatman in straw rain cape suddenly squatted
Not to hide from the summer
shower
Chasing the giggling
seedpod pickers
But to reveal a secret to
me touring from Canada
Each of those standing tall above the lake
Has a groom lying flat on the water nearby
In the English Bay
the waves surging towards the seashore
not unlike my spirits
the seashore embracing the waves
not unlike your arms
a whale seems trying to jump above the water
like what is not supposed to be unlike
the waves surging towards the seashore
not unlike my spirits
the seashore embracing the waves
not unlike your arms
a whale seems trying to jump above the water
like what is not supposed to be unlike
Night Quiet
in the distance are heard some lonely footsteps
wandering beyond the boundary of wild dreams
a dehydrated lamp suffering alone from insomnia
listens attentively to crickets’ calls outside the walls
the moonlight crunches under the shoes of fall
birch leaves trembling violently like thin thoughts
only still life can still bear such solitude…
Night of Sky
night of sky in the sea, bursting
with clouds and whales and chrysanthemums
night of sky in my mind –flat
when my meditative spirit stays still
among shapes and sounds, like a lotus-eater
night of sky in the sky, deep night
when my imaginings are starfish finding themselves
swimming closer to the carrel tree, to their nests
Day vs 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
Table
of Contents
1. Seasonsacape
2. Beyond the Blue
3. Sun Setting above
the Sea
4. Ritual
5. Sea View
6. Nightscape
7. Spring Scenery
8. Tree and Flower
9. Crow in the
Sunlight
10. Mushroom
11. Summer Scenery
12. At Sunrise in
Summer
13. Corn
14. Sunflower
15. Autumn Scenery
16. Stream Moonset in
Autumn
17. Pumpkins
18. Dandelion
19. In the Twilight
20. Sorghum
21. Poppies
22. Winter Scenery:
The Black Bird
23. Winter Sleep
24. Wintry Willow
25. Ode to Huyang
Tree
26. At Zhangjiajie, A
UNESCO Designated Nature Park
27. Sightseeing at
the Harrison Lake
28. Confucian
Gentility: Floral Haiku
29. Animal Virtue
30. The Cycle of a
Life
31. The Season
32. Sea Snapshots:
Four Haiku
33. Sounds of the
Ocean
34. Dialectic Diary
(1)
35. Dialectic Diary
(2)
36. At the Bubbling
Beach
37. Above the Water
38. Spring Sunlight
39. In Stanley Park
40. On Osler Street,
Vancouver West
41. Appointment
42. Hasty come, Hasty
Go
43. Rain Clouds
44. Mid-Autumn Moon
45. Withered Twig
46. The Revelations
of Lichens
47. Those Gliding
Geese
48. Autumn Rain
49. Orange
50. Still
Chrysanthemum
51. Bamboo
52. Wild Wild West Wind
53. Snow White
54. Elegy of Snow
55. Pine Tree
56. The Last
Snowflake of Last Winter
57. Canadian Winter
58. Horticulture
59. Here at the Sea
Shore
60. At Yoho’s Natural
Bridge
61. Confession of a
Cat
62. The Dove
63. Song of Salmons
64. Primavera
65. Snail and Grass
66. Winds
67. At the Top of
Grouse Moutain
68. On the Honghu
Lake
69. In the English
Bay
70. Night Quiet
71. Night of Sky
72. Day vs Night
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