Day & Night: A Parallel Poem

 

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

Lens

 

You have lost the

Lens

That has no

 

Frame without it

And that frame

 

Has come off from

The lens right

In front of

 

Your eyes which

Will have a

Frame within it

Mind

 

Dipping, soaring

Weaving, flittering

Through the darkest air

In a mythic cavern

Like a bat beating about

All alone

 

Just as every beast

Is forever confined

Within its own skin

So is every mind

Is jailed tightly

Behind the fine bars

Of our nerve endings

 

but this bird can never be caged

even when its wings both broken

Bio: Changming Yuan authored several books before emigrating out of China and currently teaches writing in Vancouver.  Yuan's poems appear in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, Cortland Review Exquisite Corpse, London Magazine and nearly 200 other literary publications worldwide.  His debut collection (Chansons of a Chinaman) and monograph (Politics and Poetics) both released in September 2009, Yuan has recently had work nominated for a Pushcart Prize.