Episodic Epiphanies 

Etymology of Me as a Human: a Bilinguacultural Poem

Love Lost & Found: for Qi Hong

By Yuan Changming

Episodic Epiphanies 

1/ Into the Reality

You see, here’s the leaf dyed with the full

Spectrum of autumn; here’s the dewdrop

Containing all the dreams made on the

Darkest corner of last night; here’s the

Light pole in the forest where gods land

From another higher world; here’s the swirl

You can dance with to release all your

Stresses against the Virus. Here you are in

Deed as in need embracing

The most

Mindful moment, when you can readily

Measure your feel with each breath, but do

Not think about time, which is nothing but

A pure human invention. Just point every

Synapse of yours to this locale. Here is now

3/ The Art of Living

   With my third eye I glaze into

The present moment, & there I find it

Full of pixels, each of which is

Unfurling slowly like a koru into

A whole new brave world that I 

Can spend days, even months to watch

As if from

          A magic kaleidoscope

Etymology of Me as a Human: a Bilinguacultural Poem

1/ Denotations of I vs 我

The first person singular pronoun, or this very

Writing subject in English is I, an only-letter

Word, standing upright like a pole, always

Capitalized, but in Chinese, it is written with

Seven lucky strokes as 我, with at least 108

Variations, all of which can be the object case

At the same time.

Originally, it’s formed from

The character 找, meaning ‘pursuing’, with one

Stroke added on the top, which may well stand for

Anything you would like to have, such as money

Power, fame, sex, food, or nothing if you prove

Yourself to be a Buddhist practitioner inside out

2/ Connotations of Human & 人

Since I am a direct descendant of Homo Erectus, let me stand

Straight as a human/人, rather than kneel down like a slave

When two humans walk side by side, why to coerce

One into obeying the other as if fated to follow/从?

Since three humans can live together, do we really need

A boss, a ruler or a tyrant on top of us all as a group/众?

Given all the freedom I was born with, why, just

Why cage me within walls like a prisoner/囚？

Love Lost & Found: for Qi Hong

1/ Missing Most in Missed Moments

Each time I miss you

A bud begins to bloom

So you are surrounded by flowers

Everywhere you go

Each time I miss you

A dot of light pops up

   So you are illuminated by a whole sky

Of stars through the night

2/ The Greatest Soft Power

What Softens

                        A human heart is

Neither money nor honey

Rather, it is a good natured smile of

Some dog playing with a cat, a bird

Feeding her young with her broken wings

Covering them against cold rain at noon
The whispering of a zephyr blowing

From nowhere, the mist flirting fitfully

With the copse at twilight, the flower

Trying to outlive its destiny, as well

As the few words you actually meant

To say to her but somehow you forgot 

 In the tender of last night

Yuan Changming started to learn the English alphabet at age nineteen and published monographs on translation before leaving China. With a Canadian PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver. Credits include twelve Pushcart nominations & twelve chapbooks (most recently LIMERENCE) besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17) & BestNewPoemsOnline, among 1,899 others, across 48 countries. Yuan served on the poetry jury for Canada’s 44th National Magazine Award.