John Zheng

The Sweet Remnants of Bygones

One hand pinches the nose of my mind to keep away the stale hay of old days from making me sneeze while the other turns the sepia pages of re-education covered with a fuzzy layer of gray dust and mold.

zhiqing years…
sesame shoots
grow inch by inch
in spring rain
for a blooming moment

Seeing the young me bending in golden paddies and swinging a sickle, I release the pinch at once to smell the new crop, eager to chew a small handful of it for the bitter taste of hardships.

soft breeze
faint scent
of white lotuses
wafts in to tickle
the faded mind

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About the Author

John Zheng is the author of two collections of haibun and tanka prose: A Way of Looking (Silverfish Review Press, 2021) and Dreaminations (Madville Publishing, 2026). His latest books are Still Motion, coauthored with the photographer Leo Touchet, and Conversations with Lenard D. Moore, both published by Photo Circle Press. He has received three Mississippi Arts Commission poetry fellowships.

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