Carolyn Yan is a Singaporean poet at the crossroads of cultures. Having spent several years living in France and fluent in English, French and Mandarin, her love of travel and nature inspires many of her poems. She savors the sacred in the every day, and has an affinity and deep love for the written word. More of her work can be found on her Instagram page Lipstick & Miracles. ---------
Lighting Blue Lanterns
I dream
of my milk mother
as rice steam fills the empty
places.
Ginger trails her yellow fingers.
She parts
ripening lips
to feast on spring and love red.
Retracing the wild dance
of characters spilling from black brush.
She unhinges
the night
sends blue lanterns to the wind
so that I can hear long flute songs.
We finger stories
carved in verdant jade,
black ink
splash of magpies
building a bridge
of moon and jasmines
from his feet to mine.
She awakens
the yellow river
meandering through my veins.
Moments from the Blue Kiln
Day undresses slowly peeling
off corn-blue skins sacred
dance purple glazed and fired in gold.
Setting sun trails
deep red ribbon
across a willing horizon
before yielding to the dark.
Whole cycle of
breathlessness. We
intoxicate ourselves
mirror-dusted
on that Indian summer night
oiled only with a full drop
of fragrant moon.
Waves caper like fish
ten million trout-blue bellies
pregnant and emptied by turns
in summer noon.
Slide against uneven white face
tempting songless rocks
to melt slowly
into the sea's indigo trance.
We send white-sailed wishes
into the pink shell-scented wind.
The message laughs back
in glass-blown waves around us,
this moment like every other
is perfectly shaped.