Calls of the Crow
Changming Yuan
How many times
Have you lain in thick darkness
Imagining a white crow
That you wish to see
Or rather to be
Not until the other morning
Did you hear a wild bird crying
Like a loud persistent knock
At the door of your heart
Beyond your curtained window
Beyond your curtained dream
It was a crow hammering all its white yaws
Right into your soul
Resonating with your truer selfhood
Changming Yuan grew up in rural China, authored three books before
moving to Canada, and currently teaches writing in Vancouver. Yuan's poems have
appeared or are forthcoming in Canadian Literature, Drunken Boat, Exquisite
Corpse, Iodine, London Magazine, Salzburg Review and others.