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Chinese Literature Society of North America
 
Chinese Literature Society of North America

The Chinese Literature Society of North America is a non-profit organization registered in BC, Canada.

The purposes of the society are:

  • To manage the publication of the literary journal of "North American Maple".
  • To promote the culture exchange between Canada and China in the respect of literature.
  • To build a literature bridge between the English and the Chinese poetry around the world.

The society is dedicated to developing the journal and promoting its cultural value. Its directors and members are volunteer workers for the journal. The board of directors will be reelected every two years. The president of the society, with the help from other directors of the society, will appoint editors and invite advisers for the journal.

Being Human
John B Lee

I am reading Rumi
reading Tu Fu
and thinking of being human

last summer
Marty and I
slept in the farmhouse loft
under French heaven near Vitteaux
and we lay in our separate cots
like boys at camp
laughing, talking silly
making fun of everyone
we were mostly ourselves, middle aged men
with the window open
to starlight
and the evening breath of the fields

look up at the slant of ceiling
the slant of beams
this room was built
for dreaming
and we were giddy as lads
with happy lives, not
old Tu Fu, his sadness settled
like shadows, like rivers
like cold stones of winter
and the bitter darkness of long nights
and the lonesome insomnia
of small hours
like the mystical beauty of death and dying
and the inescapable anger of the soul

our hearts
refusing the silence
with a lovely slowing exhalation
as we each become
more pensive in
the loosening limbs of slumber
relaxing our hands like unfurled leaves
and pressing our faces to linen

meanwhile great rivers of the earth
the Tigres and Euphrates
the Yangtse
the Amazon of my father's last days
flow on
and what would I buy
from the famous floating markets of Bangkok

I would purchase the rains of remember
I would purchase the stars of recall
and what to preserve in a poem
but the drenching of darkness with light.
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