The Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day, is a time when families of Chinese ancestry visit the tombs of their ancestors. It falls on the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, and it is commemorated by ritual offerings to departed loved ones. This may include food or the burning of joss sticks and joss paper.
Poet Cathy Xinman has written “Qingming” (see below) to coincide with this festival. Xinman is a Canadian resident who writes poems in English and Chinese, as well as screenplays. She was honoured with a golden statuette at the San Francisco International New Concept Film Festival in 2023, as well as the Remi Bronze Award for Dramatic Film Screenplay at the Houston International Film Festival in 2024.
Qingming
The idealized spring,
Please misunderstand tears.
Please willingly become a redeemer.
Please show me:
The disturbed grass,
The unknown trees,
The birds are never described.
Where is the map of the soul?
Qingming, where should you stand?
Speak for those in reality —
They were sent into the rain, silent.
Please show me those lost souls of stone.
The unfit wind overgrown with weeds.
The rain claims it is not too wounded,
Sailing toward the long river —
Ten thousand years, a hundred million,
It accepts everything.
Language is powerless.
Poetry is powerless.
Let them weep.
Let them unsheathe like swords, piercing the earth,
Unerringly awakening blood,
To steer such an immense theme.
Cathy Xinman’s English-language collection is entitled Where You Love Yourself. Find it on Amazon. Learn more about the communities that make up Canada on the Toronto Spark website. The Toronto Spark is on Bluesky @torontospark.bsky.social.
