Skip to main content
Original artwork by Ella Jensen

Birthplacing


Yuan Changming
Poetry

Having nothing better to do, I kill

Time by looking at a traditional  

Chinese painting on my iPad

 

Much enlarged, it appears like 

A plain sheet of rice paper 

Smeared with ink. I view it

 

In the presence of bonsai; I 

Drop several thick strokes to the floor

Of history, leaving a few fine lines

 

Behind the sofa, & failing 

To catch a colorless corner 

Between black and white

 

It is a landscape newly relocated

Into my heart’s backyard. Then I sit

On my legs, meditating about there

 

Being no light in the picture, no

Shadow of anything, no perspective

As in hell. Isn’t this the art of seeing?