Art: Yellow Leaf 6 by John Gregory Brown

Yosemite Triptych

Chiming waves chant

my name in a lost language

Lake of dreaming clouds

Lake of shining rocks

The lightning of wings sparks

unaccountable memories

* * *

Mountains veil in green translucence

Silence spreads from blackbird eyes

Silver light streams ancient sequoias

The road snakes glinting stars

A pine forest’s vast bowl shimmers

gold as the sun crowns the rock dome

* * *

Ice mirrors sunset’s final blush

Pine needles clip the moon

Sierra ridges silhouette

across lapis lazuli sky

The ice-laced river sings

bridging chasms in time

About the author:

Yun Wang is the author of poetry books “The Book of Mirrors” (White Pine Press Poetry Prize 2020), “The Book of Totality” (Salmon Poetry Press, 2015), and “The Book of Jade” (Winner of the 15th Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize, Story Line Press, 2002), and the book of poetry translations “Dreaming of Fallen Blossoms: Tune Poems of Su Dong-Po” (White Pine Press, 2019). Wang’s poems have been published in numerous literary journals, including The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Cimarron Review, Salamander Magazine, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Green Mountains Review, and International Quarterly. Her translations of classical Chinese poetry have been published in The Kenyon Review Online, Salamander Magazine, Poetry Canada Review, Willow Springs, Kyoto Journal, Bat City Review, Xavier Review, Connotation Press, and elsewhere. Wang was born in China, and came to the U.S. for graduate school in 1985. She is an astrophysicist at California Institute of Technology, currently focusing on developing space missions to explore the Universe. https://www.amazon.com/Book-Mirrors-Yun-Wang/dp/1945680474

In the artist’s words:

Born and raised in New Orleans, John Gregory Brown is the author of the novels Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery; The Wrecked, Blessed Body of Shelton Lafleur; Audubon’s Watch; and A Thousand Miles from Nowhere. His honors include a Lyndhurst Prize, the Lillian Smith Award, the John Steinbeck Award, a Howard Foundation fellowship, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Book of the Year Award, and the Library of Virginia Book Award.His visual art has been displayed in individual and group exhibitions and has appeared online and in print in Hayden’s Ferry Review, the New England Review, Flock, The Brooklyn Review, Gulf Stream, and elsewhere. He is the Julia Jackson Nichols Professor of English at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, where he lives with his wife, the novelist Carrie Brown