KINDLING

                    —in memory of Li Guozhong

Clouds move over the tall reeds
Silky rays pour down the foggy harbor
You had stood there, carrying a long lens—

led us birding in a Monet’s painting
You abruptly crossed the time’s gate
When the sun passes the lighthouse

your laughter still echos into the knee-
deep shore where our tripods once stood
When snowy owls return to the island where

you showed us how to find their
wonder & leave them undisturbed
I hear you whenever a bird is calling

Xiaoly Li is a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Grant (2022) recipient. Her poetry collection, Every Single Bird Rising (FutureCycle Press, April 2023), was a Zone 3 Press Book Award finalist. Her poetry is forthcoming, featured, or anthologized in Salamander, Saranac Review, Spillway, PANK, Chautauqua, Rhino, Verse Daily, and elsewhere. She has been nominated for: Best New Poets, twice a Pushcart Prize, four times Best of the Net. She lives in Massachusetts where her photography has been shown and sold in galleries in Boston. Xiaoly received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and her Master’s in computer science and engineering from Tsinghua University in China.