Birds of Disparate Feathers:
A Confucian Call
By Yuan Changming
Come, come, you peng
From the Zhuangzian northern darkness
You swan from the Horacean meadows
You pheasant from under Li Bo’s cold moon
You oriole from Dufu’s green willow
You dove from the Dantean inferno
You phoenix from Shakespeare’s urn
You swallow from the Goethe oak or
The Nerudan dense blue air, you cuckoo
From the Wordsworthian vale, you albatross
From the Coleridgean fog, you nightingale
From the Keatsian plum tree, you skylark
From the Shalleyean heaven, you owl
From under the Baudelairen overhanging years
You unnamed creature from the Pushkinian alien lands
You raven from near Poe’s chamber door
You parrot from the Tagorean topmost twig
And you crows from among my cawing words
Come, all of you, more than 100 kinds of
Birds from every time spot or spot moment
Come, with your light but strong skeletons
Come, with your hard but toothless beaks
Come, with your colored feathers, and flap your wings
Against Su dongpo’s painting brush strokes
Come, all you free spirits of nature
Let’s join one another and flock together
High, higher up towards mabakoola
Yuan Changming, 9-time Pushcart nominee and author of six chapbooks,
began to learn English at 19, and published monographs on translation before leaving China. With a PhD in English, Yuan currently edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver, and has poetry appearing in Best Canadian
Poetry (2009,12,14), BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1119
others across 38 countries.