Published January 15th, 2025
Featured Poet Contest #4 – First Place
by Su Yun
Spring Prayer of the Lone Tree
As though my palms alone could pray,
Praying for songs to rise from the depths of gorges,
As if I ponder for these songs,
Contemplating the tune,
simmered all winter,
Traversing the fields,
cleansed into symbols sacred,
Dyed and woven into divine forms,
Becoming algae that flows into the mortal world,
Seeking a cradle of warmth to cling to,
Finally stretching into the grass on the ridges,
I pray ceaselessly,
Until the evening sun encircles in a golden flood,
I fix my gaze on the budding tips of my fingers,
Immaculate yet so faint,
Swaddled in the rings of years and withered wrinkles,
I sigh,
Oh youth, the most beautiful lament of humanity.
Sand Shadow Fires Heron
In the pond on the east side of the bridge,
The clouds were lightly bound to the bottom of the shore.
The willow leaves are mingled with the reeds, the flowers are dark,
And I,
In the Liaotan of the western desert of the bridge
The water waves shatter my reflection.
Let it be scattered in the ink hole
And then soaked up in the play
In the transpiration of a little light,
I see myself in the evening smoke.
The sun is coming from far away,
But I still gather in a cloud of smoke.
It seems that I only allow myself to know myself.
If my soul
Can't control my spirit
Then how could I have searched in vain.
If it's Bai Yu
Can't control the light night
Then I'm not giving up.
Don't give up
From all that muck,
To take out and scramble back
The hidden light.
Wash them away
Take them back to the light gathering
At the end of the peach forest
Rain Window
Raindrops, escaping the wipers
Crystalize on my window.
Through this crystalline veil
I divine my destined path.
Rising from the pondside path to the distance,
Floating from the lifted wheat stalks to the village
Where churches and ancient houses stand
Where chimes echo and rain-kissed windows glisten.
Starting from inside the house,
Opening rain-drenched windows one by one,
My footsteps, unlike droplets from branches
Cannot create ripples in puddles.
My silhouette, unlike roadside grass
Cannot wholly embrace the rain.
Yet I long to push open one more rain window
To step into a new world.
About the Poet
Su Yun resides in Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province, China.
Read the poet's biography on Su Yun's Artist Page.
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