China-Charm: For George Lai Yuan
Blood-red, blood-bound thread of life
Passing through a shadowed pin pointThe lid, lukewarm, dulled and dusty
Inside the glass of time
A five year old grain of rice
Remains odorless, almost invisibleWith it, a petite pretty purplish petal
Flourishing without air, like amber
Its potential limited by its surroundings.Inscribed on the smooth
Yellow-tinged surface of the rice
Are yuan qing, my Chinese name
Looking like two Taoist paintings
It is a single small grain,
But I never forget the wide fieldsSwaying back and forth without a swish
It hangs high on my lamp head, like
The memory of China sitting on a treetop
Within my heart, a charming charmRestrained but living
Fraser River Rocks
Living though not thriving
We have rocks
There are life-changing ones
Like the centre of the galaxy,
An immense figure above others,
It oversees the smaller ones
Being swept away by
Their own inadequacies
The big ones resonate ripples into the river
An act of defiance against the mainstream
A change felt in the watersThen there are the small pebbles
common and collected in the pits of the river
drowned in silent buzz, they just hold up the big rocks now
they are all Atlas holding up a big ambitionBut sometimes the big ones fair no better
As they become stepping stones
A foothold for an almighty foot.
