Poems by Chen Liansong

Bio of the Author

        Chen Liansong , MD, is a poet, photographer, and independent publisher. He has served as Medical Director at multiple medical institutions across the United States. He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the New Poetry section for the He Ming Literature (published by the Alliance of Chinese-American Universities) and as Deputy Editor-in-Chief for Overseas Highlights. He has published a three-volume series of "poetry therapy" collections through the U.S.-based New Continent press and has edited and published the works of numerous distinguished poets. He currently resides in the North Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The Smallest Fatal Unit

An avalanche can be fatal.

So can a drop of water.

A brush with fate can be fatal.

So can a dream.

A slogan can be fatal.

So can a single word.

                Feb 20, 2026 — A recent avalanche at Lake Tahoe has claimed as many as eight lives.

                I had been there just a week earlier, only to remark on how little snow there was.

Winter Solstice

The night of illness feels thick and heavy.

Within a body thrown off balance,

time reveals its fractured pulse.

My appetite is gone; perception itself

has become a clumsy jigsaw puzzle.

Tomorrow is the winter solstice in North America.

It seems the long night has spread here in advance

from some distant shore.

The feelers of life quietly draw in their borders.

The taken-for-granted fact of being alive

cannot withstand even a minor illness.

Outside the window, the barren hills

have already begun to turn green,

reclaiming, piece by piece, territory for spring.

The winter fog in the hills of Fountaingrove

never misses its appointment,

dressing the eucalyptus and oaks

in their winter garments morning and evening.

The honeysuckle and New Zealand tea trees

are blooming just as they should.

Leaves cover the yard; when the wind rises,

it is impossible to tell whose fallen leaves are whose.

Today I ordered a wintersweet online,

hoping that next year

it may set winter’s damp cold aglow.

All things take turns, each in its season.

Only the body drifts slowly westward in bed.

Tonight, I think of those being born

and those closing their eyes forever.

Birth and death share the same hour,

yet remain strangers to one another.

At moments like this, it is easy to think of death,

of reincarnation, of God;

to wonder where I might go after death

to become nourishment for a patch of grass.

There, in the depths of darkness,

I would wait for the sun to warm again,

wait for a patch of grass to awaken,

and let it greet the spring on my behalf.

Then a voice from above would say:

“How well this grass has grown.”

Click to read the Chinese version