Chang Liu
Bio:
Chang Liu lives in Toronto where he works as a translator and forest conservationist. His parents immigrated to Canada from China and France at a time when to be of dual ethnicity was to be only half of this, half of that. During his 20s and 30s, he travelled and studied in Thailand, became fluent in Thai and immersed himself in a culture where sensuality and spirituality blur in a way that can rattle the Western mind. To his dual ethnicity he now adds a third, which often finds expression in his poems. To be of mixed ancestry is to discover, sooner than most, that identity is expansive and not always dictated by place of birth.
Chang Liu’s poetry has most recently appeared in two anthologies: Sky Island Journal (Spring 2018) and TOK Book 5 (Diaspora Dialogues & Zephyr Press, 2010).
The scolding
listen—the rain is scolding the world again
drums the point over and over into our shed roof—
before its relentless argumentthe fall leaves droop.
in the grey vastness of a noah noon a new sea rises just outside my bedroom window
there’s the neighbour’s dogwashed up wide-eyed under our shed steaming mop
and look—
a bit more rust on your used lincoln
a touch less redon the ageless wheelbarrow
still piled high with your rotting wood.
hush, the rain isscolding the world again I told you so I told you so I told you so
not unlike your anger,only, less thunder more water
and remembering to forgiveall the wet things outside
even your axerusting away,at rest.
