Poet’s note: I consider this poem an ode to beginnings—a constant reminder that, before the hurt sets in, before any damage is done, the first page of any story holds infinite promise. There is always a reason for characters to meet, a reason for a bud poised to bloom. As continuous as life may be, one always retains the liberty to invent a new beginning, to trust it, and to live another story.

Beginnings are Generous

........................for Lun

The sea. The sun. The egg. Before thirst,
the bee broke the quietude of a room—
a thought electric—and hurled herself at the pane

until she dropped on the sill, drained and gold-misted,
her sweetened wings dried, accepting
the sky, through the glass, was no longer sky.

Before bruises, screams, and tears, before
fresh juice and pulp are smeared across
the scorched soil of a Spanish garden,

two boys, unfettered in midsummer heat,
were throwing limes at each other, laughing,
sneering, playing “who-kills-who-first.”

The seed. The leaf. The flower before the fruit that rots.
We erect a city with towers so tall that we forget
fault lines, fallible men, and their bodies falling.

Still I mark an X here and build. Still I chalk
precociously around me a perfect perimeter,
then balk at the prospect of so much white space

I fill it with crises and climaxes and soft endings
where nothing resolves. Still I lay down another
brick in the wall of want, though not long ago

I was told to begin again—how brisk and bracing
it was when water was water, fire fire,
when roses, stripped of expectations, were only flowers.

Now, the lines in the air curve and converge
and compose a Möbius strip in which
last spring is now and now is later.

Then you enter. Having made a cut
anywhere you wanted—this cut—you
say we start here, and I believe you.

Header image: Frost flowers. Via.

How to cite: Yan, Marco. “Beginnings are Generous.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 18 Jan. 2025, chajournal.blog/2025/01/18/generous.

Marco Yan, a poet born in Hong Kong, has been featured in prestigious publications such as Guernica, Epiphany, and The Scores, among others. He holds an MFA in Poetry from New York University and currently resides in Hong Kong.

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