Tree Scars

With your fingers, hands

and even arms cut off,

 

you have scars all over

your body, which first

 

you used to protest against all human pain

and injury in deafening silence, then

 

your mouths became eyes staring still

at each evil knife, each inhuman act.

 

Now you are looking forward, and beyond

without a wink, without a tear drop.

 

 

 

Yuan Changming, nine-time Pushcart nominee and author of seven chapbooks, published monographs on translation before moving out of China. Currently, Yuan edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan in Vancouver, and has poetry appearing in Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 1,149 others across thirty-eight countries.