Live Encounters Poetry & Writing March 2025
The Seeking Heart, poems by Anna Yin.
The Seeking Heart
after the 2025 Spring Festival Gala at Living Arts Center, Mississauga
I wish to be the horsehead fiddle,
its melody unfurling a vast prairie,
as fingers glide over tautened strings.
Flocks of snowy sheep drift at ease,
sturdy steeds gallop into sight…
Lasses’ hair sways with the breeze,
their smiles sunlit and sweet.
I long to ride toward that boundless horizon.
In dreams, the prairie blooms with song,
wind carries wings and milk fragrance.
Mongolian yurts scattered like stars,
footfalls of dancers’ drum through the earth.
Beneath a sun that never sets,
meadows stretch beyond the eye’s reach…
Whose gaze stays crystal clear?
Whose heart soars with the eagle?
Your fingers weave a story,
my soul trembles with sighs…
Wherever your morin khuur’s music flows,
its echoes linger deep within me…
May the prairie persist in its pristine beauty.
May the world be free of strife and discord.
May locks on our hearts unfasten with ease.
May our eyes forever behold light and peace.
A Pair of Yellowstone Mugs
for my dear son Jason
At Old Faithful in the park,
we bought them—
each with a different hue:
green as the fresh, rolling hills,
brown as the enduring, robust rock,
embracing moments from a quotidian life.
We wrapped them with soft, weathered newspapers
and sent them to your tiny loft
in the high-rise of the Big Apple—
a landscape
dashing with greenback tally and bitcoin trend,
tinkling with high-heels and sparkling goblets …
In our distant, cozy cottage,
after shoveling fresh snow, we made tea and coffee.
By the wooden table near the fire,
we sat and thought of you …
In the skyscraper-framed metropolis,
after a long, eventful day,
passing by the bronze bull statue,
would you feel tired and cold?
When the night curtain falls,
would you pour green tea or brown coffee
into the mugs and sit with your loved one,
savoring the fresh aroma and free spirit of Old Faithful
dreaming of roaming wildlife and serene scenery?
We heard the wind passing through our windows,
snow angels you once created appeared in our dreams—
Stars of Times Square blurred and grew unreal.
© Anna Yin
Anna Yin was born in China and immigrated to Canada in 1999. She was Mississauga’s Inaugural Poet Laureate (2015-17) and Ontario representative for the League of Canadian Poets (2013-16). She has authored six poetry collections and four books of translations including Mirrors and Windows (Guernica Editions 2021). Anna won the 2005 Ted Plantos Memorial Award, two MARTYs, two USA scholarships and grants from Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts. Her poems/translations have appeared at Queen’s Quarterly, ARC Poetry, New York Times, China Daily, CBC Radio, Denver Quarterly etc. She read on Parliament Hill, at Austin International Poetry Festival, Edmonton Poetry Festival and universities in China, Canada and USA. She teaches Poetry Alive and her 11th book is Breaking into Blossom (Frontenac Press 2025).