East Idioms
Changing Yuan
Table of Contents
1. Ch’i, Or the
Original Breath
2. Dao: the Original
Source of Species
3. Nuwa’s Dilemma: An Other Mega-Narrative
4. Yin + Yang
5. The Fengshui Rules: Yang vs
Yin
6. Three Sun Shootings: An Other Genesis
7. The Unpatented
Quadrants
8. Chinese
Gentility: Four Floral Haiku
9. Swirling
Swastika: a Chan (Zen) Poem
10. Fate Forecast
11. Fengshui
Associations of the Five Elements
12. The Ballad in
Bagua (Or Eight Trigrams): A Mini Epic*
13. Half of the
Triumph: the Eight Trigrams
14. Nine Detours
of the Yellow River
15. The Confessions
of the Chinese Calendar
16. Zhuangzi
Revisited (1): Butterfly Being
17. Zhuangzi
Revisited (2): The Mouse, A Mouse
18. The Confucian
Knowledge
19. Confucian
Nobilities (1): Pine
20. Confucian
Nobilities (2): Bamboo
21. Confucian
Nobilities (3): Chrysanthemum
22. Name Changing: A
Confucian Principle
23. This Is a Line: A Piety Poem
24. Curse in
Verse: An Ischemic Tradition
25. Ancestry
Worshipping
26. You Are a Buddha
26. You Are a Buddha
27. Chan: Self-Meditating
28. Chan: Inner Landscaping
29. Chan: Self-Rebuilding
30. Chan: Self-Renovating
31. Therapeutic Chan-Poems (1): Mind-Clearing
Mudra
32. Therapeutic Chan-Poems (2): Dewdrop Mudra
33. Therapeutic Chan-Poems (3): Flower-Picking Mudra
34. Therapeutic Chan-Poems (4): Infinity Mudra
35. Therapeutic Chan-Poems (5): Sky-Reaching Mudra
36. Therapeutic Chan-Poems (6): Round-Reaching Mudra
37. Therapeutic Chan-Poems (7): Authentic Fire Mudra
38. Therapeutic Chan-Poems (8): A-Mi-Te Mudra
39. Universal Compassion: the Chan Prayer
40. Karma-Converted
41. Inner Drought
42. East Idioms
(1)
43. ast Idioms
(continued)
44. East Idioms
(cont. 3)
45. East Idioms
(4)
46. East Idioms
(5)
47. East Idioms
(6)
48. East Idioms
(7)
49. East Idioms
(8)
50. The Clay Tripod
51. Lexical
Tourism
52. Mahjong
Marching
53. Personal
Politics
54. Yellow Comedy
55. Chanson by a
Chinaman
56. Another
Impasse
57. Sell
Liberation of Words’ Worth
58. The River and
the Bridge
59. Well Well, the
Well
60. The White
Goose
61. The Death of a Chinese Widow
62. Making Tea
63. Sunwashing
64. Reading
behind the Words
65. The Knitted
Vest
66. Fatherly Fear
67. Last Meet with
My First Love
68. Class 761, Shanghai
69. Dancing with Crane
70. Naming
a Nation
71. Worldly
Affairs (7): A Chinese Portrait
72. Pidan Or Century Eggs, China
73. The Loss of a Nation’s Identity
74. Fragile, Archaic China
75. Seeing the
Dragon: A Parallel Poem
76. Modern
Mandarin-Speaker
77. The Girl Who
Danced with Democracy*
78. Drawing the
Dragon
79. Directory of Directions
79. Directory of Directions
Ch’i, Or the
Original Breath
neither the hindu
prana
nor the Christian
holy spirit
i am the authentic
source
of light and
energy
the force of vital
life itself
that you cannot
see
touch, taste,
hear, or feel
but you can always
map
my omnipresence
with the
clairvoyant tentacles
of your spirited
soul
like air, like
water
like air married
with water
i am constantly
flowing
from yin to yang
or to yin from
yang
through and around
everything
seeking mixed
smoothness
and becoming
balanced
although in the
depth
of my selfhood
contains an
infinitesimal seed
ready to grow
into my own
antiself
unworldly, beyond
words
i do not even have
a shape
but I do have a
nickname
as lao zi used to
call me
am DAO
Dao: the Original
Source of Species
before that big
blast
there was neither
time
nor space
nor matter
nor laws of
physics
nor gods of course
so they say
or believe
but somewhere
out of all that
void
Dao grew into one
point of being
divided into two
two into four
four into myriads
until it has
become
a whole universe
still growing
together with man
and god
alike
Nuwa’s Dilemma: An Other Mega-Narrative
Back from her 3 day celestial tour
(each second amounting to a century on earth)
Nuwa was abhorred to find
How the human world she had created was evolving:
While the human kind had grown
Rampantly in numbers
And in numbers only
It kept degrading inside
Into grotesque beasts
Lower than deformed insects
Seeing how well the World of Gods
And the World of Dead were both doing
Nuwa began to feel
Confused, confounded:
Of all her equally whimsical creations
Why the World of Humans alone
Was developing so loathsomely?
From that moment on she has been hesitating:
Should she destroy the entire human world
And recreate the race, or just let them go
Their own way and destroy themselves?
Yin + Yang
the light soaring
spirit
…within…the heavy metallic matter
the budding summer
dawn
…beyond…the withered wintry dusk
the hot and hard
sunbeam
…through…the cool and soft moonlight
the thin
snowflakes
…along…the thick ink
the shiny plane
…around…the dark dot
the transparent
palace
…from…the muddy field
the chasing eagle
…over…the submersed slab
the boundless
southern sky
…above…the fenced northern earth
the dry poetic
voice
…at…the wet narrative pitfall
the male
…with…the female
from and
towards……the imbalanced balances
The
Fengshui Rules: Yang vs Yin
For Yang Residence
Don’t
live in a grotesque-looking house
At
the bottom of a valley
With
all doors in straight lines
Above
all, don’t dream in a legless bed
Right
under a chandelier
However
exquisite
Or
you would be haunted by a devil
For Yin Residence
Let
your body be buried
On a
wooded ridge
Higher
than all houses
Let
your soul squat
At an
evergreen treetop
Watching
the rising sun
(Better
like my grandma
Too
poor to have a coffin)
Then
one of your offspring
Will
be a statesman
A
maneybag
Or a
literate star
(Like
me)
Three Sun
Shootings: An Other Genesis
Ancient
Chinese myth has it that the world has ten suns to begin with …
Origin of Suns
They are sons of
God of Heavens
Each with an
all-faced body, a heart
Where dwells a
three-legged golden crow
Always playing,
lolling and wallowing
As wild as so many
bears bursting with fire
In the heavenly
river of stars
Until one day they
go crazy, all jumping high
In the sky,
refusing to return home
Even to take a
break at night
First Shooting
To save his
tribesmen
Hou Yi shot down
The biggest sun
With his renowned
red bow and white arrow
Yet little
happened:
Given nine suns
still wantoning
In the front yard
of heaven
The whole earth
was burning with dry heat
Like the living
room of hell
Drought in the
plains
Fires on the
mountains
All men and women
fled
Hiding themselves
deep in cool caves
But there stared a
butterfly effect of hope
Sweeping through
the human minds
Second Shooting
Using only one
other arrow
thicker, longer,
whiter
Hou Yi shot down
three suns
No sooner had the
souls of
The three-legged
gold crows
Drifted out of
their bodies
Than night began
to fall from nowhere
Although not so
dark
Not so long
Not so cold yet
Third Shooting
At an unseen
moment of glaring spot
With his enormous
five-arrowed bow
(Newly made by the
five most powerful tribes
From the
five-colored rocks
Left over by Nuwa
after the Creator finished mending the sky)
Hou Yi squatted
straight
Aimed high
And shot down
All the other
remaining suns
Except the
brightest, the most handsome one
He left for the
human world
To disperse
earthly shadows
Ever since then,
even Nuwa does not know
Why Kua Fu has
been running
After the sun, Xi
He’s only son
In an endless and
tireless pursuit
From his tribal
home near the Wei
Lake
To the Yellow River (whose water
Fails to quench
his thirst), flowing down
Right from Heaven
to the distant wasteland
Beyond the North Sea , where he never means to stand
Where he is fated
to fall
The Unpatented
Quadrants
we chinamen, half
and quarter chinamen
children of eight
or sixteenth chinamen
constantly pounded
with a peculiar pride
over our
ancestry's four great inventions:
the first was paper to transcribe
ancient ballads
but later
often used to give ultimata to your emperors
also the printing
technique to transmit sages' teachings
but later
often used to exhibit your ugliest scars
a third the compass to
help find the golden dragon
but later
often used to guide your foreign creditors
the last gunpowder to
launch fireworks at spring festival
but later
often used to bombard your long walls
they chinese, half and quarter
chinese
children of eight or sixteenth
chinese
baffled with belief, brief belief
that their unknown ancestors
happened to invent
the wrong stuffs in the
right times
or the right stuffs in
the wrong places
Chinese Gentility:
Four 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
As though to melt all
world’s snow
Before spring gathers
Swirling Swastika:
a Chan (Zen) Poem
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Fate Forecast
- Believe it
or not, the ancient Theory of the Five Elements accounts for us all.
1 Metal (born in a
year ending in 0 or 1)
-helps water
but hinders wood; helped by earth but hindered by fire
he used to be
totally dull-colored
because he came
from the earth’s inside
now he has become
a super-conductor
for cold words,
hot pictures and light itself
all being transmitted through his
throat
2 Water (born in a
year ending in 2 or 3)
-helps wood but
hinders fire; helped by metal but hindered by earth
with her
transparent tenderness
coded with
colorless violence
she is always
ready to support
or sink the
powerful boat
sailing south
3 Wood (born in a
year ending 4 or 5)
-helps fire but
hinders earth; helped by water but hindered by metal
rings in rings
have been opened or broken
like echoes that
roll from home to home
each containing
fragments of green
trying to tell
their tales
from the forest’s depths
4 Fire (born in a
year ending 6 or 7)
-helps earth
but hinders metal; helped by wood but hindered by water
your soft power
bursting from your ribcage
as enthusiastic as
a phoenix is supposed to be
when you fly your
lipless kisses
you reach out your
hearts
until they are all
broken
5 Earth (born in a
year ending in 8 or 9)
-helps metal
but hinders water; helped by fire but hindered by wood
i think not;
therefore, I am not
what I am, but I
have a color
the skin my heart
wears inside out
tattooed
intricately
with footprints of history
Fengshui
Associations of the Five Elements
Fire: South, summer, hot, bitter
Red, gaiety, pulse,
tongue, a;
Water: North, winter, cold,
salt
Black, fright, bones, ears, e;
Wood: East, spring, wind, sour
Green, anger, tendons,
eyes, i;
Metal: West, autumn, dry, pungent
White, worry, skin/hair,
nose, o;
Earth: Centre, late summer, wet, sweet
Yellow, thought, muscle,
mouth, u
The Ballad in
Bagua (Or Eight Trigrams): A Mini Epic*
qua a: The Creative
hush! did you ever
hear
in the very
vastest void
a voice almost
invisible
awakening Pan Gu
the great father
of life
who had arisen
slowly but
steadily
amidst all
nothingness?
with his hands
like a huge ax
Pan Gu clove the
chaos into yin and yang
one floating high
above
clear and clean
until it formed
the heavens
the other sinking
deep down
turbid and turbulent
until it
solidified into the earth
even bigger than
the entire universe
his mind in itself
can create
a heaven of hell,
a hell of heaven
just as his first
manifesto
still echoes from
soul to soul:
there is
neither god, nor heaven
i am god and i am
heaven
let there be a
lightway, and here i come!
gua b: The Lake
soon after Pan Gu put the universe in order
there were more
than one thousand thunders
exploded as though
in a single big blast
triggering a
super- scaled skyquake
whose tremendous tremors traveled
along the ever darkening lightning
that created
cracks and crevices
across the
boundless vault of the
heavens
her newborns
striving hard but hopeless to survive
the flood, the
drought as well as the famine
Nuwa, the gracious
mother of the human race
to whom power had
been an eternal joy
ceased changing
her forms and shapes
starting to rescue
her young children
from the danger of
being swallowed by death
without getting a
chance to grow on their own
day in and day out
not knowing what
was tiring
she filled,
smoothed and ironed
every gap that
needed to be treated
with the soft
five-colored stones
she had defined
and refined
in her first
alchemist’s furnace
until the whole
firmament was fully mended
gua c: The Clinging
in the south
dominates Yan Di the Great
in the north rules
Huang Di the Mighty
they are both
Nuwa’s worthy offspring
but they never
brother each other
followed by
deities and humans alike
they fight
fiercely and formidably
for women, for
wealth or for war’s sake
the biggest battle breaks out in Banchuan
metal scales agape
with burning cold
chain mail
glitters over
death’s shadows
banners fluttering
against loud cries
as thick and dark
clouds keep whelming
the whole city
seems ready to collapse
even night is so
much scared to death
it hides itself in
an unseen corner
for a thousand
long days and nights
the whole universe
holds its breath
while watching the
all decisive dual
between the two
heavenly rivals
like tsunamis
meeting at the horizon
not a single drop
of blood is shed in disgrace
until most are
fallen forever in the fields
or too exhausted
to return to the heavens
gua d: The Thunder
to revenge on his
captain’s shame of defeat
chi You stages an all-front or total
war
by summoning every wind above earth
retrieving every
rain under the sky
and enrolling
each fighter
of ferocity
like thousands of wild mammoths of horror
stampeding at an unheard thunder
against the
defence line of Huang Di
to meet Chi’s
challenge Huang Di dispatches
Yin Long his most
valiant and capable general
who never holds a
weapon in his handsome hands
but on the wall of his courageous mind
hangs a sword that can break from its case
readily leap
forward like a flying
dragon
to cut off the
head of an arch-enemy
even it is more
than one hundred zhang
away
seeing Yin Long’s
legions fail to curb
the sweeping
storms manipulated by Chi You
Ba the most
talented and beautiful princess
offers to join in
the half-fought battle
by stilling each
violent wind and rain
to help destroy
the most destructive forces
despite the
puzzled eye of those who see her:
who is among us
this extraordinary fair warrior?
gua
e: The Receptive
the greatest rebel of all time
was not born to be a rebel
but wherever there is oppression
there will be a timely rebellion
this is a
universal truth
although it never
has been hand-written
like the law
formulated for every action
there is an equal opposite reaction
the door for dogs
and pigs is widely open
while the gate for
humans is tightly closed
a loud voice is
calling outside the prison
come out, come
out, i will give you
freedom
Xin Tian fondly desires freedom
but he knows it all too well
how can a human
bod y crawl
his way
out of the
desperate door for animals?
his mind can never be slaved
nor can his will be walled
Xin Tian has to be beheaded
but the moment his head chopped off
he restarts to
wave with wonders
his brave axe and unbending shield
trying to see with his nipples
and roaring with his naval instead
gua f: The Mountain
just like any
other normal bird
jing Wei has a
beak sharp and hard
with which to peck
around on the ground
and pursue her
dream dropped while flying
she has a pair of
wings of heavenly hope
plumed with
feathers of despair
that empower her
to fly long distance
and low enough to
her father’s kingdom
but unlike any
other bird on earth
her calls and
songs are her own name
who used to take a
lonely walk
along a less
trodden trail in the woods
until on a hot and humid summer day
she ventured to
swim in the East Sea
without a
companion in her private
quest
and never returned to the palace of Yan Di
ever since the
rebirth she secured
of the foamy peak of a huge wave
Jing Wei has been fully engaged
in filling the
vast and violent sea
with fresh twigs and stones
she collects and
transports from Mount West
one at a time with her lonely beak
although it seems simple but impossible
gua g: The Dangerous
out of nowhere out of everywhere
torrents of rain all fall
together
lakes overturn and rivers overflow
mountains collapse in muddy nightmares
as young and old
fight against
hunger
humans and animals
duel with plagues
the whole world
seems to be doomed
to perish in a single
fierce flood
to tame the rivers
and watercourses
Guen steals a seed
of xi soil from heaven
but long before he
can accomplish his task
Guen is killed at
Tian Di’s heavenly order
and his body
thrown in the wildness
where it refuses
to decay for three years
until a yellow
dragon is begotten
leaping out of his
belly cut widely open
Yu quickly grows to be Guen’s great son
for he never
forgets his father’s
behest
even though he has no magic xi soil
nor any help from high above
heaven
he gulps down all the dark clouds
sucks up all the
torrential rains
chains every
stream running mad
to free the land from the flood’s grips
gua h: The Wind
far beyond the
vast east sea
Xi He gives birth
to ten suns
playing happily in
the heavens
like so many
wantons who never stop
chasing one
another unawares
their faces
getting dirtier and dirtier
until summoned by
their dear mother
bathing them in
the depths of Sweet Pond
at an unseen
moment of glaring sot
all the ten sons
seem t turn wild
like mad fires
sending out more heat than light
burning every
green leaf in the field
when Hou Yi has to
hold high
his red bow and
white arrows
and shoot down the
suns up to nine
leaving just one
as Xi He’s only son
no one is sure what Kua Fu is up to
who never ceases seeking the traveling sun
in an endless and tireless chase
from his comfort
home near the Wei River
to the Yellow River flowing down
from heaven
whose water fails to quench his thirst
to the wasteland beyond the North Sea
where he means to stand to fall
forever
*As many literary scholars have noted,
Chinese literature has no epic in the western sense of the term.
Considering this fact, my 'ballad of bagua: a mini epic' is not only highly
experimental in form -- I used the most ancient Chinese folk form of 'bagua' or
eight trigrams (in a slightly modified manner), but also very ambitious in
content, for I tried to write the most ancient Chinese myths into a poetic
narrative. To my best knowledge, this is the very first attempt in any
language, since no poet has ever done so even in the Chinese language.
Half of the
Triumph: the Eight Trigrams
The creative: yangyangyangyangyangyangyangyang
yangyangyangyangyangyangyangyang
yangyangyangyangyangyangyangyang
the clinging: yangyangyangyangyangyangyangyang
yinyinyinyin yinyinyinyin
yangyangyangyangyangyangyangyang
the dragon: yinyinyinyin
yinyinyinyin
yangyangyangyangyangyangyangyang
yinyinyinyin yinyinyinyin
The receptive: yinyinyinyin yinyinyinyin
yinyinyinyin yinyinyinyin
yinyinyinyin yinyinyinyin
Nine Detours of
the Yellow River
you are unaware of
your obscure sources
but you are
explicitly sure of the vast sea
as your final
destination
you always frown with your brownish
wrinkles
but you prefer a nonprofessional
smile on your face
your
only luggage of life
all your teeth have been
lost or pulled out
but you keep licking the
muddy banks with your heart
despite your
dreams forged
your song is no more than a foam of
silence
but you struggle
hard to remain afloat on the sea of noise
beyond the borderline of
heaven
your love for the
loess plateau often overturns and overflows
but you have never flooded the
valley of the dragon's mind
since
confucius's times
your course ahead is crowded with
holes and crevices
but you will deliver
your promises to every unevenness
instead of
promising the deliveries only
you occupy an enormously
tiny place of the world
but you feed all the hopes and
wishes of those
with
thirsty mouths stranded ashore
you flow down from the sky created
by yourself
but you hope to
avoid falling on the broken floor
of
your own church
you may be
tortured or burned to steam
but you will
eventually find your impossible way
to the sea of blue sky
The Confessions of
the Chinese Calendar
it all
began with an animal race Emperor Jade called to amuse himself and his earthly
subjects...
Rat
yes, i admit
betraying the cat as my only close friend
but i won the
race, with my head rather than my legs
Ox
to honor my
contract with the yellow sun
i eat green grass,
yet give red meat to man
Tiger
as the only feared
king of the thick jungle
i am afraid and
tired of my own timidness
Rabbit
with my cagey ears
held so high
i will not miss a
sound of peace
Dragon
although my portraits
hung lively above the clouds
no human eyes have
ever seen my authentic being
Snake
the moment i
sloughed off my old slim self
i forgot ever
seducing any manhood in heaven
Horse
my body looks more
masculine than a strong man
and my heart feels
more feminine than a tender girl
Goat
when i bleat
towards the passers-by
i never mean to
speak in an other voice
Monkey
each time i try to
find any lice in the corner of my mind
i act like the
humans outside the fence with barbed wire
Rooster
with my wings plumed
with the feathers of night
i can not fly but
to crow loudly towards dawn
Dog
given my canine
camaraderie and pack mentality
i feel at home
before, among or behind soldiers
Pig
i spend all my
lifetime wisely
to guard this
single moment
Zhuangzi Revisited
(1): Butterfly Being
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
leaf
Within the human
mind
Or perhaps the
other way around
Am I?
Zhuangzi Revisited
(2): 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
The Confucian
Knowledge
Only you know
You only know
You know only
When you know that
you know
When you know that
you know not
You need to know
when you know not that you know
You know that you
know not when you know not
Or you know not
that you know not when you know not
Confucian
Nobilities (1): Pine
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
Confucian
Nobilities (2): 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
Confucian Nobilities
(3): Chrysanthemum
Still, 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
Name Changing: A Confucian Principle
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
This Is a Line: A Piety Poem
(for Liu Yu and
other mothers)
A line this is for my mother’s birthday
A birth line for my mother’s day
A mother for the birthday of a line
A celebration of my mother’s line of birth
Mother, I will line your birth with celebration
I will day a line with birth celebration, Mother
I will mother a day line with celebration
I will celebrate the mothering of a line
Mother, I will celebrate a line’s birthday
Mother my celebration of a line’s day
Mother my day’s line for a birthday
Celebrate my line with my mother’s birth
Celebrate the day with my mother’s line
Mother, I celebrate your birthday with a line
Curse in Verse: An
Ischemic Tradition*
As if this had
been a family curse
You have all the
symptoms of ischemia:
Palpitations,
short breaths, irregular heartbeats
Although no test
results show you
Having a
physiological cause of the problem
While your family
doctor keeps wondering
Why you do not
have enough blood
Flowing around
behind your Chinese chest
You know your
heart muscle as a sponge
From which you
have squeezed out
Too many of your
blood-rooted words
Like your father,
like your son
*While my father Yuan Hongqi has never been
able to get his poetry published, my 16-year-old younger son Allen Qing Yuan has
already had his poems appearing in a number of countries. Even today, many
Chinese families still keep the long lasting tradition of placing supreme
values on the literary/poetic art, resulting from the obsession with the ‘scholar-official,’
a concept deeply rooted in classis Confucianism.
Ancestry Worshipping
No, we never planned it that way
But it so happened this seventh summer
I took my twelve-year-young son
To my father’s native village among hairless hills
In the far east end, the other side of the world
Which he had left as a starving orphan
And returned with me in the Mao suit
Like a magic-toyed boomerang
When we were both at Allen’s age
For the first times in our lives
Last time, my father forced the Little Red Guard in me
To kowtow, burn joss sticks and paper money secretly
For his parents, whose dialect had survived
Though I understood it only half-heartedly
This time, I cajoled my boy to grasp a handful of earth
From the grave of my grandma worshipped by villagers
(Her humaneness has supposedly made her a local deity)
And smuggle it to the backyard of our home in Vancouver
Like some foreign seeds prohibited at the customs
As we departed, again, our clan elder chanted:
Under the shade of a new highway
This old grave will soon be erased…
No, we never planned it that way
But it so happened this seventh summer
I took my twelve-year-young son
To my father’s native village among hairless hills
In the far east end, the other side of the world
Which he had left as a starving orphan
And returned with me in the Mao suit
Like a magic-toyed boomerang
When we were both at Allen’s age
For the first times in our lives
Last time, my father forced the Little Red Guard in me
To kowtow, burn joss sticks and paper money secretly
For his parents, whose dialect had survived
Though I understood it only half-heartedly
This time, I cajoled my boy to grasp a handful of earth
From the grave of my grandma worshipped by villagers
(Her humaneness has supposedly made her a local deity)
And smuggle it to the backyard of our home in Vancouver
Like some foreign seeds prohibited at the customs
As we departed, again, our clan elder chanted:
Under the shade of a new highway
This old grave will soon be erased…
You Are a Buddha
As long as you can
Go along, or
Go alone
With Karma
As long as you are ready
To accept, or
Give up
Everything, anything
Chan: Self-Meditating
Imagine
Sitting under a tall pipal
On a vast stretch of prairies
Where you transform your entire selfhood
Into the little marigold in front of you
Then, the running stream water
The gliding bird
The drifting cloud
The morning light
The summer sky
Where you are
The universe
Where the universe
Is you
Chan: Inner Landscaping
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 laughter
In the front yard of my mind
Chan: Self-Rebuilding
Let the seed of fire grow, rising
Above your inner horizon
Like the most glaring summer sun
Let the ball burn brilliantly
Burning out every cell within your body
And shooting its light through your skin
Then, let the light from heaven fall
Filling in each blank within your shape
Until all the light starts melting together
To stuff your entire selfhood
Chan: Self-Renovating
In the heart of
every selfhood
Is there a tiny
seed of antiself
That keeps growing
unnoticeably
Until it is big,
big enough
To become one and
the same
With your entire
being inside out
Like a drop of
condensed color
Dyeing all the
water
In a diaphanous
jug
Each time an
antiself gains a growth
Your previous
selfhood gets thinner
Lighter, larger, yet
more colorful
Like yin seeking
to become
Totally mixed up
with yang
In an ever renewed
balance
Therapeutic Chan-Poems (1): Mind-Clearing Mudra
Stand straight
Stand still
Eye to eye
To a pipal or oak tree
Communicate with it
In the mother tongue of love
And imagine
Opening every door and window of your heart
Irrigating every cell of your liver with dewdrops
Bringing your vision from the horizon afar
Slowly and progressively
Back to your inner being
Above a lotus flower
Pure, fresh, crystal
Therapeutic Chan-Poems (2): Dewdrop Mudra
On the open stage of her mind
She finds herself standing alone
High above a crystal lotus flower
Where she bends down gracefully
To collect a dewdrop
From its most tender petal
Like a drop of elixir from heaven
Which she can use
To soothe, to purify
Every part of her body
Every corner of her heart
Only if she likes
Therapeutic Chan-Poems (3): Flower-Picking Mudra
With all your tenderness
Bend down gradually
And reach out your left arm
To pick up your favorite flower
From the inner garden
Behind the fence of your thought
And bring up the flower
Close up to your face
Where you can see its bold brilliance
Melting into a pool of fragrance
Where you and the flower
Become one and the same
Therapeutic Chan-Poems (4): Infinity Mudra
Stretching my hands
Along the horizon
And beyond all boundaries
I try to hold the entire universe
In my two arms
Slowly rising
Like the ocean
And gather all the energy
The spirit
The light
And the inspirations
From the very infinite
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